


Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat (Because a Cat's the Only Cat Who Knows Where it's At)

by cosmogyrals



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, I Don't Even Know, M/M, NaNoWriMo, Shapeshifting, do you like cats, mild crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 20:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21288065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: T'Challa is turned into a cat and adopted by Sam. Shapeshifting hijinks ensue.
Relationships: T'Challa/Sam Wilson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58





	Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat (Because a Cat's the Only Cat Who Knows Where it's At)

After the outreach center in Oakland, after the meeting at the United Nations, T'Challa sought to open diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. While most countries were happy to cement their newfound friendship with an ambassador, for political reasons, he came to America to open the new Wakandan Embassy in person. The United States, after all, had stood by Wakanda when presenting the Sokovia Accords to the rest of the world - although he now suspected that Secretary Ross had had his own reasons for that, many of which involved manipulating and breaking the Avengers - and, well, they were America. Their opinion held weight in the eyes of the world, and it was necessary to curry their favor.

That didn't mean he liked it, especially not when he had to make small talk with Ross at a state dinner. He had heard about the Raft from Steve Rogers, and the imprisonment of the Avengers there had, in T'Challa's opinion, bordered on inhumane. (Besides, the fact remained that T'Challa harbored a wanted criminal in his country, and he preferred to keep that a secret. Shuri's work with him remained unfinished, and T'Challa had no intention of complying with any requests for extradition.) By the end of the night, he was thoroughly tired of conversing with rich old American men - the only thing that had saved him was Everett Ross's presence and the low-voiced commentary he offered throughout.

"How do they stand governing like this?" T'Challa groaned to Okoye, leaning his head back against the leather upholstery of the car. "Does anything ever get done?"

"The same way you've survived just as many state dinners back home," his general replied, only the slightest curve of her lips giving away her amusement. "And don't say by betting with Shuri on how many of them I wanted to skewer through the whole thing."

"She always wins, anyway." And the answer in this case was more than likely _all of them_, and T'Challa would have agreed with her wholeheartedly. American politicians, as a whole, had done very little to endear themselves to him. "I still thinks she cheats."

"I think you ought to see if M'Baku would serve as your ambassador to America." Okoye's smile widened. "If nothing else, it would prove endlessly entertaining."

"Okoye, please, we can't humiliate America like that." But T'Challa found himself laughing at the thought. M'Baku would provoke them into war, true, but it would be through their own foolishness, and the man would enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, diplomats required, well, diplomacy, and the leader of the Jabari had little enough to spare. 

Their car pulled into the drive of the building that served as their temporary embassy, and T'Challa stepped out, eager to take in the cool evening air after a night locked in a stuffy dining room at the White House. Okoye circled around to stand guard at his side, her spear at the ready - and then _something_ struck. It wasn't a physical blow, although it knocked the wind out of T'Challa. He stumbled back against the car, reaching a hand out to catch his balance. There was no time to activate the necklace under his suit; he felt as if he were tangled in a net, one that tightened around his limbs and pulled until - until he could feel himself shrinking. Wakanda had tales of magic, of course, but they were nothing like the ones in the west; their stories involved powerful shamans invoking the powers of the gods and the ancestors. Nothing he had heard of prepared him for anything like this.

In a matter of seconds, he found himself on all four paws - _paws_ \- and overtaken by an impulse to flee. He wriggled through the hedge, sharp twigs dragging through a coat of fur and pricking his skin. Hearing a noise behind him and fearing it was his unseen enemy, he turned his head to look.

_"My king,"_ yowled the other cat, and he knew it was Okoye. Somehow, she had been caught up in the same curse that had changed him. Though he regretted it, he was grateful, as well; she was a warrior and a powerful ally to have by his side, and it meant that he wouldn't be on his own. _"We must escape quickly."_ And before he could protest, she caught him by the scruff of his neck - why was she bigger than him? - and leapt onto the back of a passing truck that was stopped at a light. _"This will thwart anyone who tries to track us by scent."_

And what about leaving the embassy behind? He wondered. Surely they could have found someone there to whom they could have communicated the situation. But the embassy wasn't staffed entirely by Wakandans yet - only a handful in the security team - and it wasn't impossible that an assassin (or, apparently, a foreign magician) might have infiltrated the staff. Maybe they would be safer in an unknown location.

He found his eyes closing slowly, and- _"Okoye, are you licking me?"_ Apparently feline instincts were part and parcel of this new form.

_"No."_ She groomed her own paw instead, acting like she definitely hadn't just been smoothing her king's fur with her tongue, but T'Challa knew what he had felt.

_"Focus, Okoye. We need to have a plan."_ It was an attempt to keep himself awake, curled into the warmth of the other cat, as much as it was to solicit strategy from Wakanda's greatest general.

If she had been human, T'Challa knew she would have rolled her eyes at him. Thankfully, cats didn't seem to be able to do that. _"We find you a home. I can live nearby, but in this country, it will be easier to find a place for one cat than two."_ Back in Wakanda, they could have both found a temple of Bast and been quite content there, but in Wakanda, this wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. The magic was almost certainly Western in nature, because the Panther Spirit would have protected him from any Wakandan shamans' spells.

_"And how do we change back? I do not think Wakanda will accept a cat as their king."_ Sacred to Bast he might have been, but he certainly wasn't capable of overcoming any challengers to the throne like this. Clawing their ankles, perhaps, but not defeating them - and just the thought of the water at Warrior Falls made his fur bristle.

_"Patience, my king. We will find a way with time."_ It was good advice, but T'Challa didn't know how much time they had. 

After the Raft, Sam was lucky to be allowed back in the country - even luckier to not be on house arrest. Scott and Clint both were, he knew; he was pretty sure someone had pulled some strings to get him on what was essentially a work release program. He went to work at the VA, he checked in with his probation officer, he went home, and he kept his damn head down. Right now, he didn't know where Steve was, and he was trying very hard not to know. Steve had offered to give himself up in exchange for all of them, but Sam had vetoed that as a goddamn stupid idea. As for Sam - well, he'd seen his mother leading a protest on the news, and that was all it had taken for him to go home. Steve and Nat didn't have anything or anyone to tie them down, but Sam would be damned if he'd let his parents worry about him, let them make goddamn targets of themselves protesting for justice. (She'd _led a march on Washington_ while he was on the Raft, and nobody had told her a damn thing about her son.)

So that was it - no more being Falcon, no more Avengers, just Sam Wilson, ordinary counselor who was no longer a fugitive from justice. They'd taken away his passport and his driver's license, stuck a tracker on his ankle - more subtle than the ones they used on most criminals, but it was still there - and told him that it was a federal crime if he had contact with Steve Rogers or Natasha Romanoff and didn't report it. He'd very nearly told Ross he could stick his plea bargain up his ass with that one, but his lawyer (paid for by Stark, who was either feeling charitable or guilty, he wasn't sure which) had stepped hard on his foot under the table, and, yeah, he'd gotten the hint. Some things never changed, and that included asshole officers being assholes because they got off on it.

But he'd kept his mouth shut (there had also been a pointed reminder that he hadn't been court-martialed after he'd stolen the original EXO-7 and gotten it destroyed) and been a good little boy, and he was allowed to go back to a mostly normal life.

It _sucked_.

It wasn't the job; Sam had always enjoyed his work, genuinely wanted to help the people he saw every day. So many of them got screwed by the system that had fed them to the machine and spat them back out in the first place, and he knew exactly what that was like. He'd been in the same place when he'd returned from Afghanistan. Hell, he probably should've been back in therapy _now_; the only thing that stopped him was the thought of Thaddeus Ross reading the notes from every single session. So he dealt with the night terrors, went out running, practiced his mindfulness, and he got through the days okay, more or less. There were even times when he didn't see Rhodey falling when he closed his eyes at night, and, hell, that was a sign that he could get better again, that he'd clawed his way back from the brink once before, and he could do it a second time.

He'd started emailing Rhodey - tentatively at first, but, hell, the man was a friend after the training they'd gone through together, part of their team. It had taken him an hour to write three sentences that first time, but now they tossed emails and texts back and forth a few times a day. It made him feel better, not just because he knew the other man didn't blame him for what had happened, but because he still had a friend _somewhere_ in the world he was allowed to talk to. Stark had pulled away, not that they'd been too buddy-buddy in the first place, Clint and Scott weren't allowed to communicate with the other ex-Avengers, and it was hard to talk to folks back home when they were pretty sure you were secretly some kind of criminal. Every time someone in one of his sessions asked him about being a superhero or being friends with Captain America, Sam changed the subject. There were just some things he wanted to keep private.

But being a private ex-superhero meant that he was damn lonely. So, yeah, when he saw a cat at the mouth of an alley a few blocks from home, he squatted down to say hello. The little guy didn't have a collar on, no sort of identification, and there was something about the solemn look in his wide golden eyes that tugged on Sam's heartstrings.

"Hey, kitty, what're you up to?" he asked the cat as it twined around his ankles. "Looking for a free dinner?" He'd bought a rotisserie chicken for a late dinner, and he didn't doubt that the cat smelled that in his bags. It purred in response, a sound that faltered at first, then welled up out of its chest with a rumble. Sam ran the fingers of his free hand through the fur at the back of its head, scratching behind its ears, and the cat's eyes began to close with pleasure.

Well, he'd never had a pet before, but maybe now was the time to start. "Come on, then." Sam sighed, trying to sound put out, and tucked the cat under his arm. "We'll get you some chicken, you beast."

T'Challa squirmed at the undignified handling - first Okoye, and now this, when he would have been perfectly happy to _walk_. But it was only a matter of minutes before they reached Sam Wilson's home, and the man set him down inside once the door was open. He wondered about the coincidence of the Avenger - ex-Avenger, technically - finding him, why he smelled so familiar when he'd only met him briefly before. Something about him seemed to radiate comfort and reassurance, and T'Challa had no idea why, or why he'd stumbled upon him so fortuitously. But as the door clicked shut, he saw a black tail disappear into the bushes across the street, and he knew that Okoye had followed them.

"Mrow?" He followed Sam through the hallway - maybe it was the scent of the chicken that made everything so appealing. It certainly seemed to be effective enough in making his mouth water. The American-style kitchen seemed giant to his eyes, all tile and warm wooden counters, and he wasted no time in jumping up to one of the countertops. At least his body knew what to do, even if he didn't.

"Hey!" Sam picked him up and deposited him back on the floor. "No counters."

T'Challa wrapped his tail around his body and tried to look like he'd meant for this to happen, but the tip of his tail twitched and betrayed him. _Fine_. He'd stay off the countertops. (It was a perfectly rational request, the human side of his mind pointed out; nobody would want a cat walking around where they undoubtedly prepared food. But the cat wanted to be in a high place where it could observe everything around it.) He felt mollified when Sam dropped a sliver of chicken down to him, and _yes_, it was just as delicious as he'd imagined, as magnificent as any meal he'd had at the palace back home. It was gone in a matter of seconds, so he started winding around Sam's ankles, meowing for more. (He wondered about Okoye outside, if there was a way he could get food to her, but Okoye knew how to survive. Surely she could fend for herself.)

"Look, Simba, this'll go faster if you aren't in the way." Simba? T'Challa was confused by the familiar Swahili - surely Sam didn't speak any of the African languages he knew - until he remembered vaguely that there was some sort of cartoon movie about lions. Ironic, then, that this was going to be his name.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Sam deposited a saucer of chicken on the floor, and T'Challa set to. He wasn't the daintiest eater - after all, he'd never eaten without using hands before - but he managed. More of those feline instincts, he supposed. He finished long before Sam was done with his own meal, and he wandered over to beg for scraps shamelessly. A king should have felt shame for the way he propped his front paws up on the edge of the chair and mewed plaintively, but a proper king wouldn't have been a cat, and T'Challa felt there had to be some exceptions made for his current form.

"Let me just get a couple of pictures in case you're lost, okay?" Sam picked up his phone from beside his plate and snapped a couple photos of T'Challa posing for food. Hopefully, he thought, whoever had attacked him didn't know what he looked like as a cat, and wouldn't be thinking to look for a stray cat on the internet. (Or, he thought, maybe he could just get Sam's phone after he fell asleep and delete the postings. Oh, how he missed Shuri, who would have been able to make them disappear in an instant.)

_Of course_. All he had to do was get the phone and use that to communicate. He nosed the device, and Sam turned it around to show him the picture. T'Challa didn't recognize himself in the gangly adolescent cat on the screen, except - except there was clearly a jagged white mark in his fur where the necklace that held his suit would normally be. He thought about Shuri again, and wished he could summon the suit as a cat. She definitely wouldn't have made any allowances for situations like this, though.

He pawed at the screen and made the phone go back to the menu, but Sam pulled it away. "Uh-uh. You'll leave scratches if you keep doing that."

Stupid flimsy American technology. It made T'Challa want to hiss with frustration. There was no way he could hold a writing utensil, no way he could even use kimoyo beads (if he had them, but they had disappeared with everything else when he changed shape), but a touchscreen was entirely within the scope of his capabilities. He needed glass, not plastic. Flattening his ears back, he stalked into the other room - where there was some sort of Stark-made technology right on the coffee table. A swipe of his paw, and it was ready to use...but no matter how he tried, he couldn't type. He had no problem opening apps, but when it came to typing, he was at a loss.

"You're really into technology, huh?" Sam sounded amused. "Okay, I need to run to the store and get some cat stuff, but I'll put the TV on for you to watch." He took the tablet from T'Challa and turned the television to-

To videos meant for cats. And while T'Challa wanted to protest that it was insulting, that he wanted something intellectually stimulating, part of his brain found the brightly-colored fish on the screen _fascinating_. The way they moved through the water, the way their fins fluttered...his paws sank into the fabric of the sofa as he kneaded, imagining what it would be like to pounce on his prey and bat it back and forth. He didn't even notice when Sam left.

Sam had to admit, the cat was pretty damn endearing. He was reminded of the dumbass question he'd asked the king of Wakanda all those months ago - _"So, you like cats or something?"_ \- and wondered if this was the universe's way of paying him back. Clearly he was already crazy enough to have a one-sided conversation with the critter, so he was more desperate for company than he'd originally thought.

The closest pet store was just about to close when Sam got there, but a helpful employee was friendly and more than willing to aid him with rounding up the basics for a cat, and she only made a few jokes about birds in the process. (At least one of the jokes was flirting, so he didn't mind too much.) And, okay, maybe he spent too much on toys, but Simba had already shown an affinity for his electronics - and his couch, he remembered, and added a fancy-looking scratching post and cat platform to his cart. Definitely better to make sure the cat was occupied with things meant for it to destroy. When she was checking him out, the girl even recommended a couple of vets nearby to give his new furry friend a checkup, and Sam tried not to look at the total as he added a cat carrier to the pile. He didn't even want to think about how much getting him neutered would cost on top of everything else.

On the bright side, his apartment was in one piece when he returned, and Simba was asleep on the couch. Sam set up the litter box in one corner of the bathroom, piled some food in the pantry, set up the bowls for food and water, and began assembling the cat platform. They'd had much more elaborate models - some as tall as Sam - but he only had one cat, and his singular cat was going to have to be happy with what he had.

A week had passed since his transformation, and T'Challa was, in fact, singularly unhappy with the situation. It wasn't Sam's fault - he had to give the former Avenger credit for that much, at least. The man had given him luxury that a normal stray cat would have found unparallelled. But this stray cat was a king who expected certain human dignities, and using a litterbox, for one thing, was completely intolerable. The dry cat food left much to be desired, and even the wet food was disgusting. He could always beg a few scraps of meat from Sam when he was preparing his own food, but it wasn't enough to subsist upon.

And although Okoye was near - she made sure he caught glimpses of her through the windows regularly - he hadn't had a chance to speak with her and make sure she was getting adequate care. The Dora Milaje could and would fend for herself, and she would claim that whatever she had to do in the service of her king was no hardship, but T'Challa felt a certain responsibility for her. After all, it was his fault she found herself in this situation, and if anything happened to her, he would have to explain it to W'Kabi when he returned home.

Though Sam had bought him a perfectly acceptable bed, T'Challa preferred to sleep on Sam's, and after two nights of shutting him out of the bedroom, Sam had simply given up and let him in. There was a certain pleasure in settling down next to the man, in sitting on his lap while he relaxed on the couch. Something inside him railed at becoming a _pet_ with such ease, but what other choice did he have?

T'Challa felt a strange tugging within him, and within a matter of seconds, he was human again, sprawled on his back on Sam Wilson's couch, a catnip mouse still clutched in his mouth. He spat the mouse out, feeling elated. Perhaps the spell had simply worn off! Or-

He turned to look out the window and saw Okoye outside, still in cat form. No, it was simply a relaxation of the magic which bound both of them. As long as one of them was a cat, the magic still held him in its grasp, if only because of the responsibility he bore her.

_"Highness,"_ she meowed, and T'Challa felt grateful he could still understand her. _"You must find a way out."_

Find a way out? All he had to do was wait until Sam returned and-

He remembered every other attempt he'd made to contact the human. Not just using his tablet, but trying to scratch a note, nosing his cat food to spell letters; everything went wrong. Somehow, he couldn't communicate with him, and he had to assume that would still hold true now that he could speak. Plus, even if he _could_, he didn't want to tell him that he'd been living as his pet for a week. No, T'Challa wanted to keep his dignity intact.

The guest room was in the back of the small house, and T'Challa slid the screen up enough to slip out. He assumed he was going to change back, and he definitely needed to come back before that happened - there was no way he could make it back in without thumbs. Once he was on the ground, Okoye leapt to his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek to make sure he was all right.

_"At least your clothes changed with you,"_ she commented wryly. _"I think the Americans would have trouble understanding why the king of Wakanda is wandering their capital while naked."_

"What has the news said, Okoye?" he asked. Surely the embassy hadn't reported him missing; the famously reclusive country never would have admitted such a weakness to anyone, particularly not after Killmonger's coup. 

_"Nothing. I've been listening and watching, reading the newspapers that have been thrown out. According to the reports, you're still here, but haven't made any public appearances."_ And surely they would fake his return to the country soon enough; his mother was already running the country in his absence, and was more than capable enough to continue doing so. The Dora Milaje would cover for his disappearance until they could fabricate a story that would allow Shuri to assume power without damaging their newfound standing in the wider world. Assuming this wasn't all part of a wider plot to assassinate the Wakandan royal family, and that nothing had happened to Shuri or his mother.

He set Okoye on top of the fence and quickly leapt over the structure and onto the sidewalk. "Are you all right, Okoye?" He ran his hand along her spine - an intimate gesture, perhaps, but T'Challa had owned enough cats in his life to know that it would soothe her.

_"I've had worse to eat during training sessions during the jungle."_ She butted his shoulder with her head, marking him with her scent possessively. _"The sheer amount of waste these Americans produce - I'm probably eating better than you are."_

T'Challa made a face. "You aren't wrong about that." Gods, but he hated kibble. He wanted to go buy real food, but his pockets were empty. There was a certain inconvenience to being a king, and the fact was that he almost never paid for anything himself. But simply walking down the street to see what was available was free, at least, and maybe Okoye could distract some diners outside long enough that he could abscond with their food. Normally, stealing was something he would never condone, but this was a dire situation. He needed some real food to get the taste of dry cat food out of his mouth.

A few blocks of walking brought him to an area with more businesses - shops and restaurants - and although it was after sunset, it was still teeming with activity. Okoye slipped between buildings with ease, taking to lurking as a cat with an unexpected proficiency, and T'Challa-

T'Challa found himself stopping in the middle of the sidewalk as he spotted a familiar face. "Sam Wilson?"

"Your highness!" Sam looked just as surprised to see him. T'Challa realized this was undoubtedly his route home from the nearest subway station. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking in American culture," he lied easily. "I wanted to see how people in your country live."

"And incognito, too. Or at least, without the scary ladies." Sam eyed his attire, which, T'Challa had to admit, was excessively formal for a simple night out. And while normally he might have made a comment about the Dora Milaje, he let that slide, too. Sam, he had learned, was nothing if not blunt in expressing his opinions.

"Don't worry, I'm not entirely without bodyguards." Which was true, although Okoye wasn't as equipped to defend him as usual. That didn't mean she wouldn't try, and T'Challa was sure she could figure out a way to kill a man as a cat - that she probably already had, in fact. She knew her duty and was prepared to perform it no matter what. 

"Please," he added a little belatedly, "call me T'Challa." It was still better than Simba.

"All right." Sam's lips quirked in a smile. "Have you had anything to eat yet, T'Challa? There's a restaurant I like that's nearby - they specialize in traditional soul food. I bet you haven't had anything like it yet."

Soul food? T'Challa found himself intrigued - not just by the offer of food, but by the man himself. He'd spent a week with him, observing him in the most vulnerable of situations, but still knew relatively little about him. "That would be perfect."

"Hey, Sam, what's up? Table for two?" The entire restaurant was run by the same family, and Sam knew all of them. It had been too long since he'd visited - he knew he'd hear about it if it was a slow night - but, in his defense, he'd been busy lately. 

"That'd be great. We'll take two sweet teas, too." Sam led T'Challa to a worn wooden table that was decked out in a red striped plastic tablecloth. "I swear, I'd eat here all the time, except then they'd have to roll me out." He grinned at the king. Sure, it wasn't _appropriate_ dining for royalty, but he was willing to bet that nobody had ever introduced him to the staples of black American food. 

T'Challa sniffed dubiously at the tea. "Iced tea?"

"_Sweet_ tea," Sam corrected him. "And you probably won't find it made the right way outside the South. White people think sweet tea is when you dump some sugar into iced tea, but it just gets all gritty." He made a face. "You melt the sugar in the boiling water first, so it's a simple syrup, then you make the tea. Smooth going down, and there's nothing better on a hot summer day."

"I don't think I've ever had cold tea before." But he drank the tea gamely, with the face of a man who was used to eating or drinking whatever exotic foods were placed in front of him. Sam, of course, took a picture.

"Hey!" T'Challa nearly knocked his glass over. "You'd better not put that on social media."

"I'm not," he reassured him. "Just a personal souvenir, that's all. Your face-"

T'Challa glowered at him like a thundercloud. Right, Sam remembered. King with too much dignity and no sense of humor.

"No social media," he said instead. "I think I'm banned from having a Facebook account, anyway." And that was where he would have made a Farmville joke, but it would have been lost on T'Challa. "'Cause god knows what might happen if I got online - I'd probably help my criminal fugitive friend escape from justice or something." Sam rolled his eyes.

"Have you heard from Captain Rogers?" T'Challa calmed down, more comfortable now that they were on familiar footing.

"As I tell my probation officer every damn week, no. Although, just between you and me, I'd still say the same thing if I had." Which was a dumb thing to admit, but he knew he could trust T'Challa. Hell, for all he knew, Steve was in Wakanda - he'd mentioned taking Bucky there just before he'd come to break them all out of the Raft.

"Good." T'Challa took one of the biscuits from a basket on the table, breaking off a piece to sniff it. "A loyal friend like you is to be treasured above all else. I hope the Captain realizes how lucky he is." Sam noticed, though, that he didn't offer any information regarding Steve's whereabouts.

Sam shook his head. "If I were loyal, I would've stayed with him. I wanted to, but my family- I couldn't just leave them hanging like that, you know?"

"I do know." When the waitress came to the table, T'Challa gestured for Sam to order, and Sam chose a wide variety of dishes for both of them to try. "Family is important to us, too." He ran his thumb along the silver band of his ring - his father's ring, his grandfather's ring. "I would have been hard pressed to choose in your case."

"I still don't know..." Sam hesitated. "My family is my family, but Steve doesn't have anyone. And they would've forgiven me for it, but I don't know if I could've forgiven myself."

"You are a man with a large heart." T'Challa smiled at him. "And life is always difficult for such men."

"Life is difficult for all of us." He buttered a biscuit, then broke a piece off and popped it into his mouth, savoring the texture and the flavor. "God, these are some damn fine biscuits." Sam hummed lightly. He hadn't been trying to change the conversation on purpose, but T'Challa seemed uncomfortable, strangely tense. Sam wasn't sure if it was because of the recent death of his father or something else, but he wanted the other man to feel at ease.

"You know, we _do_ have ribs in Wakanda," T'Challa remarked wryly when the entree arrived. "The anatomy of herd beasts is much the same throughout the world."

"Mm, yeah, but you don't have these ribs. Smoked for hours with the right wood chips, basted in barbecue sauce. It's an art that not many people master." Not to mention the fried okra, the macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and, most importantly, the greens. Sam took a good-sized helping of the latter. "And they're pork, not beef. Save room, 'cause we got pecan pie coming after."

T'Challa was surprised to find that he didn't have much of an appetite for anything other than meat. The vegetables were especially difficult to stomach, although the greens, strangely, were cooked with pork, and the taste made them easier to eat. He imagined that at any other time, he would have found the meal delicious, but right now, all he could focus on were the ribs. Those, at least, were as delectable as Sam had promised - although he'd failed to mention just how messy they were. By the time he was finished, his hands and face were smeared liberally with the sauce, as were Sam's. For a moment, he thought about what it would be like to lick a smear of the sauce off of Sam's cheek, and he wasn't sure if it was his human instincts or the feline.

"Okay, so you like barbecue." Sam looked surprised by the sheer volume of meat T'Challa had put away. "Good to know." He passed the king a small packet that turned out to contain a wet wipe, and T'Challa used it to make himself mostly presentable once more. By the time he was done with that, the waitress had set a large slice of pie in front of him.

"Hm." He poked the pie with a fork, then took a bite. It seemed to have no taste - another side effect, T'Challa presumed, because the so-called sweet tea hadn't tasted sweet to him, either. "And this is traditional dessert?"

"Mmhm. Sweet potato pie, too."

"I can certainly see why you said you wouldn't be able to eat like this all the time," T'Challa lied. It was a shame, because normally, the king had quite the sweet tooth, and it was something he rarely indulged in. He made a note to try this pie at another time - hopefully sometime when it wouldn't taste like sawdust.

"Right? God, you shoulda seen Steve the one time I took him to my parents' for Thanksgiving. The man's a human garbage disposal - not that my mama's cooking is trash, 'cause she taught me to cook, but, man, he went back for seconds and thirds. And of course his damn metabolism means that he can eat whatever he wants and not put on an ounce." Sam pulled a face. "I'm gonna have to work extra hard at the gym tomorrow after this, and that's not even mentioning the leftovers."

How much must this meal cost? The price would have been trivial to him ordinarily, but- "Sam, I-"

Sam waved him off. "My treat. I have a feeling you've been stuck eating too much white people food lately, and you look like a man who could use some flavor in your life." He grinned and winked broadly at him.

_Oh_. It hadn't struck him until now just how handsome Sam Wilson was. The joke left him looking like, as Okoye would have said, an antelope in headlights. 

"Thank you," he stammered finally, with far less poise than he would have liked. "Maybe sometime I can return the favor by introducing you to some Wakandan spices."

Well, that was arguably the worst pickup line he'd ever uttered in his entire life. To be fair, such subtleties were largely unnecessary when one was royalty - usually, women and men were falling at his feet, and he had to graciously turn them down. The last person he'd been interested in was Nakia, and they had grown up together - their relationship had simply grown naturally, much as it had grown apart over time. He still considered her a good friend, and one he was fond of, but-

But he was going to spend a lot of time thinking about Sam Wilson's cheekbones in the future.

"I have to get going." Something in his gut twisted, and T'Challa had the feeling he didn't have much time left on two legs. "It was good to see you again, Sam Wilson."

"Just Sam. And it was my pleasure." He didn't seem surprised by his abrupt departure - maybe he assumed T'Challa was on a tight schedule. Under normal circumstances, he would have been right. (Under normal circumstances, T'Challa would have made sure to get his phone number before leaving. Maybe. He really was incredibly bad at this.)

_"This way!"_ Okoye meowed from an alley as he left the restaurant. Either she felt the same thing he did, or she'd simply assumed that he was in a hurry, but regardless, T'Challa was glad she was here. She knew the neighborhood as he didn't, having learned it from roaming the streets while he was shut up inside. The Heart-Shaped Herb boosted his speed, and he made it back to Sam's not only before he transformed again, but before Sam arrived, as well. He had just scrambled back in the window and slammed it shut behind him when the transformation caught him again.

_"What do you think happened?"_ Okoye was still on the other side of the window, and he could barely hear her through the glass.

_"I think I just went on a date."_

_"This is not the time to develop a sense of humor."_ He could see her fur bristle. 

_"I think it's something with the magic. It was still there, but weaker. Enough to allow me to become human again."_ But the cat had been there inside him the whole time, waiting to take over again. _"I don't know if it'll happen regularly or-"_

"Aw, you got a girlfriend?" Sam came into the bedroom, stooping down to pet T'Challa. "Good thing you're inside. She looks like a handful, Simba."

He swore he could hear Okoye _laughing_ as she ran off. T'Challa twisted his head to sniff at Sam's fingers; he could still smell the pork on him, and even though he was stuffed full from the ribs he'd eaten, it still smelled delicious. He licked his hands with a raspy tongue.

"Oh yeah? Maybe if you're good, I'll give you some leftover ribs later." Sam picked him up, and T'Challa squirmed at the indignity, as he always did. The king of Wakanda was not to be carried around like a simple housepet, even when he _was_ a simple housepet. "I bet T'Challa would like you. He gets kinda touchy about the cat jokes, though."

_That's because they're sacrilegious,_ T'Challa wanted to say. But he _did_ like cats - he had always liked cats, even as a small child. Every time he'd found a stray litter near the palace grounds, he'd adopted them for a short period of time, until he took them to a temple, and he'd always had one or two as permanent pets. Wakandans considered them to be sacred, and, quite simply, T'Challa thought they were cute. It was another weakness he wouldn't have admitted to many people, and certainly not to an impertinent American making jokes about the sacred panther habit.

But ridiculous jokes aside, Sam was a good person. He'd been on the wrong side in the matter of the Accords, but the right side in trying to help Sergeant Barnes - whether that was because he was following his friend or because he thought it was the right thing to do was irrelevant, because both were good reasons. He was an Avenger, and while they'd caused death and destruction, they tried to prevent it. He worked with combat veterans - veterans like himself - and did his best to bring them back from the brink. And, quite simply, he'd taken a stray cat into his home and cared for it.

T'Challa couldn't offer any of his opinions, so he stretched out over Sam's thighs, purring contentedly and kneading his paws in the air, exposing his furry stomach to the man.

"Oh, no, I know better than that. If I try to rub your tummy, you're gonna take a swipe at me."

All right, so maybe he'd done that _once_, but it had been sheer instinct overtaking him, and not out of any sort of real malice. But he didn't blame Sam for being wary - he had enough experience with cats that he would have been exactly the same way. 

As the years went on, Sam's nightmares became more infrequent - at least, until Leipzig, until his trauma had been reawakened. After that, he'd been stuffed into the Raft and denied any sort of treatment - hell, the Raft was a problem all on its own - and he hadn't been able to get back to therapy after he returned to America. He knew he needed to, he just hadn't yet, for whatever stupid reason. But it meant that his sleep was uneasy - that he had trouble falling asleep, or he had nightmares, or he woke up and couldn't fall asleep again. It wasn't that his bed was too soft, like he'd told Steve, or not entirely. It was because he saw Riley falling again and again, and sometimes it was Rhodey, and there was never anything he could do about it. Men he considered friends - or more - broken before his eyes, falling from the sky, and Sam could never move fast enough to save them. In the dreams, it was the opposite; he was frozen in midair, no matter how hard he tried to move. He was just up there to watch them fall, over and over again, Riley's screams echoing in his ears.

It was the same nightmare every time, looping through his mind, until- until he felt a rough tongue licking his cheek. Something physical and real, something he knew had no place in the horrors his mind conjured up, and it was enough to give him an anchor back to the waking world, where Simba kept licking him. His whiskers brushed Sam's cheek (like Riley's eyelashes had when he'd kissed just below Sam's ear, he remembered, and shoved the memory down). Sam shook beneath the covers, his entire body trembling as he tried to regain control. And the whole time, the cat just kept licking patiently, long raspy sweeps, like he was grooming Sam.

"Your breath smells awful," Sam croaked finally, once he was breathing normally again. "We gotta get you some kitty mouthwash." He freed one hand from the deathgrip it had on the sheets, bringing it up to scratch behind the cat's ears. Simba daintily stepped over to resettle on Sam's chest, and a purr rumbled through his body - another soothing physical sensation. One of the best things to do during his attacks, Sam had discovered, was to focus on the physicality of what was around him, to ground himself in reality. The weight of the cat, the vibration of his purr, everything kept him from slipping back into his memories. He ran his fingers through Simba's fur, focusing on the silky smooth texture. The motion was calm and meditative, and eventually, he slipped back into sleep.

When he woke up in the morning, Simba was still there, and he slowly blinked his eyes open, his golden gaze meeting Sam's. There was something understanding in the look, or so Sam imagined. Maybe he was just becoming a crazy cat man, though. Regardless, he'd slept soundly through the rest of the night, and he was damn glad for that.

"Okay," he said out loud, "we can have bacon with breakfast." Once the cat got off his chest, anyway.

Sam hadn't expected to see T'Challa again - he'd assumed the king was back in his own country by now - but here he was, near the same place he'd run into him last week. "You know," Sam said playfully, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to bump into me."

T'Challa arched an eyebrow at him. "And do you know better?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But if you want, we can grab a drink. I was just on my way home to make dinner, but it can wait." Sam was already mentally rearranging his menu and wondering what he had to stretch it out to a dinner for two - probably a salad, he thought, and a couple extra sides. 

"I'm afraid I'm not in the mood for a drink tonight, but-" T'Challa hesitated. "I could keep you company while you're cooking dinner, if you'd like."

"You're welcome to share dinner." Sam glanced down at his bag. "It's nothing real fancy, just some pork chops and potatoes, and I was thinking about a salad for starters. Just mixed greens and a few veggies, that's all." And, granted, he was a fine cook, but this wasn't the kind of dinner he would've cooked to get laid, just a dinner for after work, with leftovers for lunch. Definitely not the sort of meal that was fit for a king - even a king who had devoured the better part of a side of ribs last week.

T'Challa spread his hands. "I promise you, I've eaten meat roasted over the fire on a spear before. I might have grown up a king's son, but the traditions of our people dictate that the Black Panther must be able to survive unassisted in the wild. You don't have to worry about making me an elaborate meal, Sam."

_Yeah_, Sam thought, _but I want to impress you._ The thought took him by surprise - sure, it was only natural to want to impress actual, honest to God royalty, but this was something else. T'Challa was the kind of guy who he wanted to make something special for to see his eyes light up with pleasure when he tasted it. They'd spent all of an hour together, and Sam was, well, smitten. Or at least interested, which was more than enough; he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this way about someone. It had been a long damn time since Riley - too long, anyone sane would tell him, and he would've agreed. (Not that Sam was celibate - far from it - but he'd steered carefully away from emotional attachments.)

"Well, if you want to come on over, then." Sam spread his hands. God, how messy was his place? He tended to keep it pretty presentable, even at the worst of times, so while it might not have been as pristine as, say, a palace with an army of servants employed specifically to keep it clean, it wasn't like T'Challa was going to find dirty dishes in the sink and unmentionable things growing in corners.

"I'd be honored. Lead the way, Sam."

Sam wasn't sure what he talked about on the short walk back to his house - babble about work, things he said just for the sake of talking. He was too busy having a low-level freakout about hosting a king, which he was pretty sure would have happened to anyone. Not like he had the king of Wakanda turn up on his doorstep every day, after all.

"Oh," he added, glancing back over his shoulder as he unlocked the door, "I have a cat. I'm gonna assume you aren't allergic."

"You have a cat?" A hint of mischief sparkled in T'Challa's eyes. "So does that mean you like cats or something?"

Yeah. He'd left himself wide open for that one, but it was worth it hearing T'Challa laugh. It was free and open, and not a sound Sam imagined he made often, or that few people got to hear.

"Real funny." Sam pretended to be indignant at having his own words thrown back in his face. "Hysterical. You oughta be a stand-up comedian. Uh, if you wanna put something on TV, be my guest." He gestured to the living room and sofa. "I'll just, you know, be cooking."

"If there's anything I can do to help-"

Sam pulled a bag of greens and some vegetables out of the fridge, nudging the door closed with his foot. "You can make the salad if you want?" Like he was going to force him to do anything - he wasn't only a king, but more importantly, he was a guest in Sam's home, and Sam treated guests right. There was definitely something gratifying in the way he rolled his sleeves up, though, and Sam had to tear his gaze away from his bared forearms. 

Soon enough, the kitchen was full of the scent and sound of pork chops sizzling in the pan. Sam had already started the potatoes boiling, and T'Challa was hard at work chopping vegetables. "I would help in the kitchens sometimes as a child," he offered. "They gave me the easiest tasks to do, of course, but being able to do something productive made me feel good. I can't claim to be capable of cooking, but things like this make me relax. Although I'll admit that I had an ulterior motive in trying to sneak pastries from the kitchens whenever I helped, too." He chuckled softly. "I thought I fooled the chefs, but very little escaped their notice."

"I started helping my mom cook when I was high enough to reach the stove," Sam offered. "Just stirring and things like that, but she always had something going. There were always folks who needed food, or a church dinner to cook for, or a family gathering coming up. I learned all the family recipes from her. And when I came back from Afghanistan and moved out on my own, cooking was - like you said, it's a good way to relax. It's self-care, it helps ground you, it's just soothing. When everything comes out right, it gives you a boost of self-esteem, 'cause you did it all by yourself."

"Did you live with your parents at first when you returned?" There wasn't any judgment in T'Challa's tone, just curiosity, and Sam wondered if Wakandans lived as more of a family unit than Americans did - of course, it wasn't like T'Challa had ever had to live by himself, or even that he would have been allowed to live on his own.

"I stayed with them for a few months while I readjusted to things and figured out what I wanted to do with myself," Sam agreed carefully, turning over the pork chops. That was the safe story - entirely true, but omitting how broken-down he'd been after leaving the military, how he'd gone through months of therapy to carefully piece his life back together. "I'm from Harlem originally - moved down here for college after Afghanistan. I went to Howard to finish up undergrad, got my graduate degree in therapy, started working for the VA, met Steve Rogers one day while jogging, and you know the rest."

"I do." T'Challa didn't press him on his history anymore, and Sam was grateful for it. "Do you have a large family, Sam?"

"Just me and my parents, but I have a whole herd of extended family. What about you?"

"My mother and my little sister Shuri. I-" He very carefully set down the knife and turned to face Sam. "My father had a brother that none of us knew about. He went to America and, while there, became involved with certain radical movements. He sold vibranium to outsiders to finance an operation, and because of this, my father was forced to execute him."

"Your father killed his own brother?" Sam had never met King T'Chaka, but it was clear that his son thought highly of him, and to admit something like that almost certainly meant that it was bothering him.

"There was a child - my cousin. His mother was incarcerated and died in prison. My father left him there - left our _family_ to protect his secret, to protect the secret of Wakanda. It was...poorly handled. Erik knew of Wakanda; his father had taught him before he died. His life was troubled, but he excelled at everything he did. He eventually became a secret operative for the American military, killing countless numbers of people. And the whole time, his goal was to return to Wakanda. He came back after my father died and challenged me for the throne - our throne is not strictly hereditary, you see. Any leader of the tribes or their blood is within their rights to challenge the heir presumptive, and the heir must defeat them in ritual combat. Erik slew Zuri, my father's chief adviser, who had been present at his father's murder, and then defeated me. He threw me off the waterfalls, into a gorge. By rights, I should have died." T'Challa fell silent for a long moment.

"But you didn't."

"No. A member of the border tribe found me, and their leader - one who had previously challenged me, in fact - kept me alive until my mother and sister could bring me a dose of the Heart-Shaped Herb and return me to life. Erik - N'Jadaka - held the throne legitimately, but his goal was to incite a global uprising with vibranium weapons, to bring the entire world under the rule of Wakanda and make them pay for the centuries of abuse they had heaped on our people."

"Shit," Sam swore, wide-eyed at the story. He'd grown up in Harlem, knew that Oakland had to be similar, knew the injustices the system must have heaped on Erik, poor and black and just one of too damn many. He could see where the desire for revenge must have come from, knowing that there was a nation that was capable of righting the wrongs done to every black person on the globe, and that they had remained hidden for centuries.

"His desire to see change was not wrong - now that I know his story, I know that it is our responsibility to help others outside our borders. But what he wanted to do was monstrous - would see us become the monsters in order to destroy them. And I would not have that happen." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I killed him, Sam. As much as I wanted to spare my own blood - I would have had Shuri heal his wounds - he wanted to die, wanted me, I think, to know the same fate as my father. He was not the first man I have slain, nor will he be the last; the Black Panther does not lead a bloodless life. But to kill one's kin...it leaves a wound upon the soul. He would have gladly killed me and my entire family and watched everything I loved turn to dust, and it would not have been enough to quell the anger in his heart. And yet, I cannot blame him for his rage. I saw my father killed - not because he was a king, but because he was a pawn in manipulating the Avengers - and I wanted my revenge on the man who murdered him. I have felt something like it, and turned away from it, but it is a difficult choice to make. A child is hurt, and he cries out - he wants to lash out at whatever caused the pain and retaliate in kind. A man knows that he must not, because the pain he spreads multiplies, until there is nothing but anger and hate left in the world. I would not have that be my legacy."

Sam just stared at him for a long moment. Apparently Steve wasn't the only one who had a talent for making up speeches off the cuff. "You're right," he replied quietly. "I've seen enough of war to know it. I could have thrown my life away on revenge, but I wouldn't be here now if I had - wouldn't have changed a damn thing, except maybe a couple more men might be dead."

"And because you chose otherwise, you saved the lives of others. It's a strange thing, to think upon how small choices change our lives years later." T'Challa smiled suddenly, a quick flash of white teeth in his beard. "But I am not a philosopher, and you, I think, need to pay attention to our dinner."

Sam snorted and turned his attention to the pork chops just in time to keep them from blackening. "Yeah, well, I don't see much of a salad happening over there." He slid the meat onto a tray and put it in the oven to keep it warm. It was strange that Simba hadn't appeared yet, he thought; usually the cat liked to investigate whenever he smelled meat cooking. But maybe he was just passed out in a corner somewhere.

"True art takes time, Sam. You'll see." T'Challa took a step toward him, letting his hands settle on his hips for a moment. It was the closest Sam had been to him, and his nerves thrilled at the proximity, at the simple touch he offered.

"Will I? Because this really doesn't look like making a salad to me." 

"I can think of a much better appetizer." T'Challa bent to kiss him - just a soft brush of lips, experimental at first, but Sam responded encouragingly, twining his own hands around his neck to keep him there-

And then T'Challa turned into a cat. More specifically, _his_ cat, because the jagged white fur around his neck was unmistakable. 

"What the fuck?" Sam yelped. 

Simba - _T'Challa_, Sam corrected himself - yowled unhappily. Sam had to agree with the sentiment, all things considered, because he'd really enjoyed the kiss and the promise it had held. Also because the king of Wakanda was a cat in his kitchen and that was probably at least a minor diplomatic incident, if not the sort of thing that Wakanda would be really pissed off about (by which he meant scary women with spears levels of pissed off). 

Not uncoincidentally, there was a sound from the living room - and, yes, that was definitely a tall bald woman letting herself in through the window.

"Don't let her kill me," Sam whispered, crouching down next to T'Challa. Although there weren't any spears in evidence yet - he wasn't sure if that was a good sign. Maybe they would take him back to Wakanda to execute him.

T'Challa just meowed in response and pawed at the oven door.

"He says that he'll only tell me not to kill you if you give him a pork chop," the bald woman said from the living room. "It seems like blackmail to me-" She paused as he meowed some more. "Oh, you have to give me a pork chop as well. They do smell delicious."

Sam just sighed. It probably said something about how weird his life was that he honestly believed the king of Wakanda, who was also a black cat who had been living with him for weeks now, was blackmailing him for pork chops for himself and his very intimidating bodyguard. "Why is he a cat?"

"I don't know. We were both turned into cats - some sort of magical attack, I believe. He has changed back twice so far, and it seems as if your kiss made him revert to feline shape, which also made me become human. For which I thank you, by the way, because I was getting really tired of being a cat, may Bast forgive me."

Another meow.

"Yes, all right. My name is Okoye, and I am first among the Dora Milaje, the king's elite bodyguards. You are Sam Wilson, also known as the Falcon, former member of the Avengers."

At least he had a name for the scary bald lady now. Sam pulled the pork chops out of the oven and got three plates down from the cabinet. "You can go ahead and start eating," he told Okoye. "I need to cut his up for him while he stares up at me like it'll make me go faster." It was utterly unsurprising how quickly he'd adjusted to being manipulated by a cat; he just hoped that didn't transfer over to T'Challa's human form.

For a moment, Okoye looked at the pork chop like she was about to start eating it without her hands, but then she took a knife and fork and began to eat normally. "I've been eating trash and rats this entire time," she offered conversationally. "And some slow pigeons. It's good to eat real food again."

"So you were hiding out there?" Sam sighed and dropped a couple of pieces on the floor for T'Challa.

"I had to watch over my king." She shrugged. "It's hardly the worst hardship I have suffered in the line of duty. I thought it unlikely that anyone would take in two cats, and I knew he would be safer with a human. Though if I had known it would be a human who disrespected our traditions so, I might have reconsidered." There was something almost like a look of amusement in her eyes. So T'Challa had told all of Wakanda about his joke, apparently.

"I didn't mean any disrespect," he insisted. "Just, you know, trying to make small talk in the back of a police car. Like you do."

"Strangely, that is not a situation in which I have found myself before." 

Finished with the meat, Sam fetched water for both himself and his guest before he took a seat to start on his own meal. "Yeah, well, that's because you don't hang out with Steve Rogers." T'Challa butted his leg, and he glanced down at him. "What?"

Another series of meows, which Okoye translated. "He says to put the plate on the table so he's not left out of the conversation."

"Can you actually understand him, or-"

"Yes, and he could understand me when he was human and I was a cat. I imagine it has something to do with the magic binding us."

"Right, yeah, of course." Sam sounded unconvinced, but he got the plate anyway.

"He also promises he will not punish you for the indignities you have forced him to endure when we return to Wakanda."

"You're real dramatic, you know that?" Sam put down his fork and knife to fix T'Challa with a stern look. T'Challa, being a cat, endeavored to look regal and innocent - actually, that was probably just T'Challa being T'Challa. "I bought you a bed _and_ all those toys to play with, and I know you were real into that squeaky mouse. Not to mention getting high on that catnip. Sorry I didn't know you were human and couldn't serve you bite-sized meat on a vibranium plate for every meal."

T'Challa twitched his tail. "The litter box."

"He's a cat! What the hell was I supposed to do?"

Okoye shrugged. "I think he is trying to express his sense of humor again, but it's difficult to tell with him in this form."

"I think I'm about to make him chase a laser pointer for the next ten minutes if he doesn't shut up."

This time, he could tell Okoye was hiding a smile. "You may want to relent on this matter, Highness. There are larger problems to solve than arguing with one American."

"Like making sure your king is human again?" Sam frowned. Sure, he was used to weird things happening as a matter of fact, but the Avengers didn't run into magic often - apart from Wanda, who definitely couldn't change people into animals. Even Loki's scepter had been more science than magic, in the end.

"We must return to Wakanda - all three of us." Okoye gestured at Sam with a fork. "I don't understand how, but you seem to be tied into this magic now as well. Hopefully my transformation will endure, but if not...T'Challa said that before, the magic was preventing him from communicating with you about the nature of our curse. You are the only one who knows about this."

Normally, jetting off to an exotic country wouldn't have been a problem for Sam, but there was one thing tying his hands. "Yeah, that's great, but I'm not allowed to leave the country. The Accords, remember?"

T'Challa blinked at him and started grooming a paw.

"A reason will be found." Okoye brushed the problem away as quickly as Sam had brought it up. "Leave it to the diplomats." She paused to interpret for T'Challa again. "He says that if the Secretary of State argues, he will send the chief of the Jabari to negotiate with him." The grin she gave Sam was distinctly predatorial, and he wondered if being a cat had rubbed off on her. "He does not suffer fools."

And that was how, the next morning, Sam found himself approaching the Wakandan embassy with Okoye at his side, the king of Wakanda perched on his shoulder. (Sam had tried to coax him into a carrier, but T'Challa and Okoye had both been wholly opposed to the suggestion. He'd also offered to kiss either T'Challa - on the nose - or Okoye to see if the transformation would swap their forms again, and it was then that Okoye had suggested that his ideas were entirely superfluous to her plan.)

Whatever conversation was happening with the guard - definitely not one of the red-clad Dora Milaje - it was in a language Sam didn't know, though T'Challa had swiveled his ears to follow it. Judging by Okoye's tone, she was displeased, and when she gestured and shouted in English for Sam to run, he did just that, ignoring the way T'Challa's claws dug into his shoulder. Okoye didn't follow, and he figured that meant she either couldn't or wouldn't.

And that meant it was time for plan B, which, unfortunately, _did_ entail coaxing T'Challa into a cat carrier. He was glad that he didn't have Okoye there to translate for him, because he was pretty sure every sound T'Challa made was a profanity of some sort.

"Should've just said he was a service animal," Tony said, some hours later, while Sam availed himself of the Tower's first aid kit. "Emotional support, and all that. People fly with emotional support turkeys, you can have a cat." He had been surprisingly accepting of Sam turning up on his doorstep with a cat he claimed was the king of Wakanda - or, at least, he hadn't immediately called Ross and an army of psychologists, which amounted to the same thing. T'Challa, freed from the carrier, was contentedly shredding the arm of what Sam suspected was an inordinately expensive couch. They'd ordered him a sashimi sampler, and now he was stuffed and in kitty heaven.

"You know anything about magic?" Sam asked Tony. It was one of the worst questions to ask a scientist, but, hell, it was worth a shot.

"No, unfortunately, I never got my owl from Hogwarts," he replied dryly. "I couldn't wingardium your leviosa if my life depended on it. But it just so happens that I might have something hanging around that you might find handy." Tony winked at him, something Sam found profoundly unsettling. "You know, speaking of flying."

"Tony, are you implying that I would violate my probation under the Accords?" Sam pretended to be offended, even though that was precisely what he'd come here to do. In lieu of other transportation, Stark was the only man he knew with private jets - and the only one who could hook him up with a Quinjet.

Tony sipped his martini. "Look, if I just happen to leave some luggage out for you, you oughta take it, that's all I'm saying. You could use a change of clothes."

Which was literally true, since he'd shown up in New York with only a cat and the clothes on his back, but Stark made it obvious that he was speaking more metaphorically. Sam didn't know what he'd do with another jetpack - the obvious aside - but, hell, he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It wasn't what he'd expected, not after Leipzig and everything that followed - but he hadn't expected Tony's willingness to have a cordial conversation, either.

"You hear from Rogers lately?" Tony asked after a long pause. Frankly, Sam had expected the question a lot earlier in the conversation. Steve and Tony were...well, it was complicated. Even more complicated now, from what Steve had told him after the Raft. 

"Nope, not a word. Whatever he and Nat are up to, they aren't telling me."

"Oh." Stark looked a little disappointed, although maybe that was just Sam's imagination. "Yeah, I guess- I guess he'd probably try to keep under the radar. If you see him-" 

Sam waited for Tony to finish his sentence, but it never came. Instead, he polished off his drink, his fingers clenching the stem of his glass so hard Sam thought it might break.

"I probably won't see him," Sam finished. "T'Challa asked me if I knew where he was, so I doubt he's hiding out in Wakanda."

"Yeah, you're right." His refill, Sam noticed, was entirely gin. "Well. Just in case."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

Tony waved a hand vaguely. "Forget about it, Wilson. Just don't scratch the Quinjet, or I'll make you pay for it. And keep that monster from destroying the upholstery."

"You know, I think 'that monster' can legally have you beheaded." Sam knew because he'd threatened him with it, via Okoye. 

"Gotta extradite me first, fuzzball." Stark threw a lazy salute to T'Challa, whose tail was twitching now. 

"Hey, Tony, is there supposed to be a light show in your living room?" A few sparks had caught Sam's eye, and those sparks became a whirling circle of light several feet in diameter. 

"The hell?" Tony turned to look at it. "Fri, get me an energy reading on that." He set the glass down on the table, and armor crept up his other hand, metal seeping from nowhere and climbing up his wrist. Well, Sam thought, _that_ was one hell of an upgrade.

A man stepped out of the circle, his red cape rippling in some unseen wind, and the circle - Sam could only call it a portal - snapped closed. The fact that he looked human didn't mean anything; Thor looked human, after all, and he was a damn god. This man was tall and spare, his neatly groomed dark hair sporting silver streaks at the temples, and a goatee not unlike Stark's. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything." His gaze slid to the armor that now reached Tony's shoulder; the transformation had started on the other hand, too. "Tony Stark, I presume."

The creeping armor halted, and Sam wondered how far along the prototype was. Taking this long to change seemed like a disadvantage to him, but, then again, he wasn't an engineer. "Hey, Tony, maybe he's bringing your letter from Hogwarts."

The man looked down his nose at him. "Stephen Strange," he offered. "American, and not a wizard."

"Well, you sure aren't a Muggle," Sam retorted. And he wasn't the first white man to give him a dirty look, nor would he be the last.

Even the cape retreated from Sam, pulling closer to Strange - apparently moving on its own. Which, okay, he wasn't even going to question that now that a wizard had popped into Tony's living room.

"I'm a sorcerer and a practitioner of the Mystic Arts." You could practically hear the capital letters in his voice. "And I'm not here to hurt you, Stark, so you can lose the armor."

Tony hesitated, but the armor began to creep away again, retreating to wherever it had come from in the first place. "I can see where you'd want to make the distinction. I mean, Harry Potter, that's totally unbelievable, but a sorcerer named Strange? Entirely different."

"I used to be a neurosurgeon." He stripped off his own gauntlets and let them fall on the table. "My name is a quirk of fate, nothing more. Now, I'm here about the magical anomaly you seem to be housing."

"You mean the cat?" Tony groaned. "I thought Sam was bullshitting me."

"Why the fuck would I do that?" Sam raised his hands in supplication to anyone willing to listen. "I have better things to do with my life than drag a cat from DC to New York and convince people that he's the king of Wakanda. If I pulled a prank on you, it'd damn well be something you had a chance of falling for."

"Maybe you wanted a Quinjet to go and look for Steve and wanted to provide me with plausible deniability in case Ross came sniffing around? Although a magic cat isn't exactly what I'd call plausible-"

Strange rubbed his temple with a pair of fingers. "Suddenly I understand why the Avengers broke up," he muttered under his breath.

"Don't look at me, that was Stark's pissing contest in a parking lot."

"Hey, there was no pissing involved, literally or figuratively," Tony insisted.

Folding his arms over his chest, Stephen glowered at both men. "I didn't come here to rehash Leipzig. Like I said, you have a magical anomaly - small-scale on the scheme of things, but it was still enough to trigger my wards. I wanted to make sure you hadn't inadvertently imported some sort of artifact that would cause a mess I'd have to clean up. Anything that would cause possession, resurrect ancient gods, zombify the masses - although some might argue that one on a technicality - alter the flow of time-"

"Breed uncontrollably if fed after midnight?" Sam interrupted.

"Whatever." Apparently Strange wasn't big on the pop culture references. "This is some kind of shapeshifting curse-"

"-oh, thanks for the information, we never would have figured that one out-"

"And normally, it wouldn't be too hard to reverse it. But it's set in over time, and from what I can see, it's all tangled up in some other magic. You said this was the king of Wakanda? As in third world country Wakanda?"

T'Challa curled his lip up over his teeth and hissed indignantly.

"More like technologically advanced society masquerading as a third world nation," Sam corrected him. "You didn't pay attention to the UN address?" Or any of the other news since then. Wakanda had kept most of it quiet, but there were hints that their technology was far more sophisticated than anything the West had to offer.

"Their technology level is unimportant. There's some kind of deity bound in with the curse - or, rather, linked to it. I suspect that it's involuntarily powering the change. If I tried to break it here, I would sever the link between the king and the deity, and I honestly can't tell you what would happen. The curse itself is drawn from Western magical traditions, but Wakandan magic has changed it beyond anything that I can modify on my own."

T'Challa tilted his head intently as he listened to Strange's explanation, and Sam wondered how much he knew of the magic in his own country - of the god who apparently was tied to him somehow.

"So what you're saying is that we have to go to Wakanda." Sam's tone was deadpan. "Which is exactly what we were already planning on doing. Thanks, that's real helpful."

Strange rolled his eyes and made a rectangle of paper appear between his fingers with a flick. "Here." He offered it to Sam. "Call me if you need any help. Teleporting within the city is simple, but I need more information if I have to visit somewhere unknown. I might be able to help once you're there, or I might not."

He turned on the heel of his boot and disappeared back into another circle of whirling sparks, just as quickly as he'd come.

"I think I would've preferred a Hogwarts letter." Tony went for the bottle of gin. "But now we know there are wizards in the city."

"And that they're assholes."

"Sam, you're from New York. You know that describes most of the people here." Stark took a long swig from the bottle. "But, yeah, he was an asshole. Probably means he's a fantastic wizard, though."

"Or that he's in love with a woman who rejected him in school and was murdered by an evil wizard."

"Hey, Snape might've been a shitty person, but he was a good wizard. My point stands. Also, how the fuck do you specifically stumble across a stray cat that happens to be the king of Wakanda? Like, really, what are the odds of that? That's a rhetorical question, I could do the math if I wanted to-" He held up a hand as Sam started to interrupt. "Basically, magic is bullshit."

T'Challa meowed, and Sam could only imagine that the king agreed with Tony's sentiment.

As Sam boarded the Quinjet, he noticed a case placed on the copilot's seat. It was smaller and sleeker than the gear he'd been hauling around, and although he was intrigued, he also had to get the hell out of the country. He stowed it in the back, taking note of the weapons Stark had provided for him, and-

"The hell?" he breathed. There, right in front of him, was a very familiar shield, with a post-it note stuck on it. _Just in case. -T_

"You know," he said to T'Challa, "a normal couple would just kiss and make up."

T'Challa seemed more interested in the navigational systems than Sam's commentary on the Avengers' love lives. The autopilot, according to Tony, had already been programmed to the general coordinates known for Wakanda; getting past the country's defenses would be the hard part, especially because the only person who knew how to do that was a goddamn cat who could neither communicate nor fly a plane.

Once they were in the air, T'Challa fell asleep quickly, and Sam got out his new phone - Tony had rightly pointed out that the government was probably tracking him with the old one, and had offered an upgrade that would prevent that. (Because he was Tony Stark, he had also installed Angry Birds first.) As far as the government was concerned, Sam was still in New York, not somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and Sam was absolutely fine with that.

Although there wasn't room on the plane to check out the entire rig, Sam cracked open the case with his new gear. It was smaller and sleeker, more refined, the wings less bulky than before. Stark had included another control bracer, and what Sam assumed was Redwing 2.0. "Hey, little buddy," he said to the drone, patting it fondly. The original idea for a drone incorporated into his jetpack had been his idea - something that would've been damn useful in Afghanistan - and no matter how much the others teased him, he still liked the little robot. 

He'd also included a new set of tactical gear, and Sam took the opportunity to get changed. He didn't know what their landing would be like, but he didn't imagine the Wakandans would give them the warmest of receptions, and he wanted to be prepared. The new jetpack fit snugly over the gear, and he could actually sit down while wearing it all, harness included.

"Say what you will about Stark, but he does good work," Sam said to T'Challa as he settled back into the pilot's chair - just in time for the warning system to flash as it picked up incoming missiles. _Shit_. He'd really hoped they would at least be able to land and explain themselves first. Sam punched the button for evasive maneuvers - better to let the computer handle that - and ran to the back, grabbing a pair of sidearms and holstering them. He slung the shield over one arm, then darted back to the front to grab T'Challa with the other, cradling him between the shield and his body. Surprisingly, the king didn't offer any protest at the rough treatment.

The radar would still pick him up, Sam knew, but if he was lucky, they might write it off as wildlife. Or he wouldn't be lucky, and they'd still shoot both of them down. Either way, he found himself staring out the cargo bay as the plane zagged back and forth. Hopefully Stark hadn't changed the control systems too much. There was just enough give in the straps that he could adjust them to squeeze in the shield against his chest, leaving room for T'Challa. If he hit the ground stomach-first, at least T'Challa would be fine.

Sam unconsciously held his breath as he watched a missile close the gap between them - and when it was only a few dozen yards away, he jumped and spread his wings. Jumps had never been one of his favorite ways of taking off, but he'd done enough chute training that he was used to the sensation of falling, knew how to react. Except that he'd deliberately waited till the Quinjet had lost enough altitude that they were just above the tops of the trees - too close for a parachute, and if the wings didn't deploy, he'd end up as little more than a smear against a tree trunk.

The familiar sensation of the jetpack's engine hummed against Sam's back, softer than usual, but still reassuring. The trees, he'd noticed from above, were the size you'd expect from a jungle - not that Sam had ever been anywhere near a jungle before now - and he hoped the canopy would give him some cover for his maneuvers.

_"Next time,"_ a voice said over his comms, _"read the damn manual first."_

"Stark?"

_"I only have a moment, I just ducked out of a board meeting when FRIDAY told me you'd activated the jetpack. Listen, you don't have a full-blown AI with you or anything, but I've got some rudimentary neural interfacing installed. Something to make the wings work with your brain when you decide to, I don't know, play tag with missiles in the middle of the jungle. And what did I say about the jet?"_

"Totally not my fault!" Sam tried to argue, but he only ended up with a mouthful of leaves for his trouble. Stark seemed to have vanished, leaving the hiss of empty air, until-

_"You have thirty seconds to tell me what you're doing in Wakandan airspace with Stark technology and a chest full of vibranium."_

"Fu-" He was cut off by more leaves in his mouth. "Can I land first?"

_"Only because you have a friend vouching for you."_

A friend? Had Okoye managed to make it back to Wakanda unscathed? Or had T'Challa been lying?

_"-sorry, not a friend,"_ she corrected herself. _"But he seems to think you'll behave like a civilized person, so that's good enough for me."_

Sam set down next to a stream with some brilliant emerald grass growing next to it, carefully unholstering one of his sidearms. He didn't know what he would find out here, but he was pretty sure the jungles of Wakanda held wildlife that wouldn't be too happy to find a human in their midst - and that wasn't even counting the Wakandans, who seemed to be perfectly capable of hijacking his tech from a distance.

"Can you hear me now?" he quipped. Sam felt T'Challa squirming against his chest, so he undid the harness straps, letting the shield fall to the ground, and exposing one very rumpled cat.

_"I could have heard you in your plane."_ She sounded a little annoyed. _"Which I didn't shoot down, by the way. The automated defense systems triggered while I was busy working, and I wasn't told about it until it was too late. It seems to be a running theme in my life lately."_

"Right, so, I've got a long story, and it's kinda weird. I'm not totally sure you'll believe me." Which was a really good way to start off with someone who was clearly capable of killing you from a distance. 

_"An Avenger jumping from a plane with Captain America's shield strapped to his chest is strange enough to begin with, and you're going to tell me it gets weirder?"_

Sam paused. "Wait, I don't know who I'm talking to. How do I know I can trust you?"

_"Wilson, stop dicking around and tell the princess why you're here with the shield."_ That was a different voice, but one he remembered - oh, god, did he remember it. He had, after all, been crammed into a tiny car with Bucky Barnes for the ride from Berlin to Leipzig. Steve had threatened to push both of them out of the car more than once. He might have been an amnesiac brainwashed super-soldier, but Bucky hadn't stopped sniping at him the whole damn time. _"Sorry, princess,"_ he added as an aside, presumably as an apology for the coarse language.

Well, if he couldn't trust Shuri, he was pretty sure he couldn't trust anyone in Wakanda, judging by what T'Challa had said. "Your brother's a cat."

The silence was so long that he thought he'd been disconnected.

_"What the fuck?"_

"Hand to god, I swear it. I could text you a picture right now."

_"Stay where you are. I'm sending Bucky to get you."_

Sam was pretty sure they could get to wherever they were going faster with just the two of them, but he wasn't going to argue with the goddamn princess of Wakanda. (He argued with T'Challa, but that was different.)

T'Challa stared at him intently for a moment - Sam wondered if he'd been able to hear Shuri's half of the conversation - before he darted forward and bit Sam's hand. His rough tongue lapped at the wound, and Sam wondered if maybe he'd hit his head against a tree and hallucinated everything. Maybe he'd hallucinated the last few weeks of his life, for that matter.

The king interrupted this line of thought by jumping onto his shoulder and shoving one bloody leg in his face. He hadn't been injured before, so Sam could only assume he'd done this to himself. "What the hell?" he asked. T'Challa hissed at him and clawed his face, leaving stripes along his cheek - and this time, he didn't lick at the wound. When Sam opened his mouth to swear again, he found a cat paw jammed inside, and the coppery taste of blood, only some of which was his own, and _god_, this was so gross.

_"I swear to Bast, Sam Wilson, if you do not get this through your thick head-"_ Okay, now the noises T'Challa made resolved as words in his head, and Sam spat out his paw.

"For fuck's sake, T'Challa, you didn't have to get violent."

_"You jumped out of a plane and crushed me against your chest."_ His ears were pinned flat against his skull, and his tail swished in the grass. _"Do you think that I might not be slightly annoyed at the moment?_"

"Gee, I'm sorry I didn't give you a little kitty parachute," Sam snapped back. "Only reason why we had to bail in the first place is 'cause your people shot us down, so I really don't think you have any room to bitch, and- why the fuck didn't you do this translation thing before?"

_"It's aided by the Panther Spirit,"_ he huffed. _"Obviously I would have done it in the first place instead of spending weeks pretending to be a common housecat if it would have worked outside the borders of Wakanda."_

"And you just thought of it now."

T'Challa bared his teeth at him again. 

"Please never make me drink your blood again, you creepy fucking vampire cat." Sam rolled his eyes. The king was apparently having a literal hissy fit, and Sam was really not in the mood for any of it. Hell, he missed the gentle, flirty man who'd been in his kitchen what seemed like a lifetime ago (but was really last night, or maybe the night before; time was starting to blur together). "I still have fur in my mouth."

_"If you want to get back at me so badly, you can cough it up on my palace floor later."_ T'Challa settled down in the grass, right in the middle of a sunbeam. _"I know little of magic, but in all the old stories, blood has power. The spirit of Bast runs through my veins, no matter what shape I take. I needed to get you to ingest my blood, and I had no way to tell you - and I'm not sure you would have done it even if I had asked it of you, considering your reaction."_

Okay, so that was true. That didn't mean Sam was happy about it. "And why did you have to have my blood?"

_"Laws of reciprocity."_ T'Challa yawned broadly, his teeth gleaming white. _"Wake me when Sergeant Barnes arrives."_

That was one of the worst explanations he'd heard in a long time, Sam thought. While T'Challa napped again, he spread the wings out on the grass to admire them. Whatever they were made of, they seemed to be lighter and more flexible than before, and he was eager to get somewhere where he could fly in the open - assuming that the Wakandans didn't murder him straight off or lock him up and then execute him. Bucky's say-so probably didn't have much weight around here, although the princess seemed to like him well enough.

It was another hour before a hovercar arrived; the craft itself was graceful and rounded in shape, a dull grey color with a shimmer to the metal that Sam bet hinted at the presence of vibranium. And the driver - well, the driver looked a lot healthier than the last time Sam had seen him, his cheeks filled out and flushed, and his hair silky-looking and smooth. He was clad in Wakandan-style clothing, a wrap over the stump over his arm.

"Barnes," Sam greeted him.

"You done preening, Wilson?" He gestured to the wings spread out. "'Cause we got a bit of a political crisis going on here, and Shuri wants to see her brother, cat or no." Bucky glanced down at the cat, and T'Challa cracked one golden eye open to peer at him.

_"I don't know how you tolerate this man."_

"I'm not sure if you're talking about Bucky or me." Sam realized Bucky was giving him a confused look, and, okay, he knew what this probably looked like. "I can understand what he's saying. I promise I'm not crazy."

"You were already crazy," Bucky retorted. "Talking to a cat's a whole other level. But, hell, not like I have any room to talk."

"You're okay now, right? Like, you aren't going to snap and try to murder me if someone says the wrong words?" Well, more like the right words, but Bucky knew what he meant. 

"You're just gonna have to trust me on that one." Bucky grinned at him. "C'mon, I won't even make you ride in the back. Although you probably deserve it."

Sam reluctantly packed his wings back up and stashed them in the car, put the shield on top, then climbed in with T'Challa. "Stark gave me the shield," he offered by way of explanation. "In case Steve was here."

Bucky shook his head. "Shuri said he visited a couple times while I was in cryo, but he hasn't been back since. I don't know what he's up to." The hovercar was nearly silent when Bucky started it up. The vehicle was slender enough to weave between the trees, skimming several feet above the forest floor and leaving no sign of their trail. It was, Sam had to admit, pretty damn cool, even for a guy who flew regularly. This was just like driving a car, without any of the physical activity his jetpack required.

_"He was restless while he was here,"_ T'Challa volunteered. _"I would have offered him sanctuary, but he needed to be out in the world. I don't think he would begrudge you carrying his shield, though."_

Carrying it? Sam had used it when he'd jumped out of the plane because he'd needed something to protect T'Challa. Actually using it in battle was a whole other thing, and not something he was sure he was comfortable with. "I dunno," he demurred. "My wings make pretty good shields, and I probably can't whip that thing around like he does. They didn't teach me how to throw a shield in PJ training camp."

"Wasn't covered in basic, either." Bucky snorted. "Steve just started tossing it around. Look, he didn't know what he was doing half the time, I promise you. If anyone here's gonna use that, it should be you. I only have one arm, and it's not for carrying a shield."

_"I would be surprised if Shuri didn't have a prototype arm completed,"_ T'Challa commented, and Sam passed it on to Bucky. _"If we go into battle, you should not be unarmed."_

"You can throw him out for that pun. Just pick him up and toss him into the jungle," Bucky suggested after Sam translated. "He'll be fine, he can walk to Birnin Zana."

"If I do that, he'll show up leading an army of panthers or something. And they'll all be pissed off at us." That was just the way his life was going lately. "So, hey, I met a wizard in New York City."

"Really? So does everything freaky show up in New York?" 

"Well, some assholes hide out in goddamn Bucharest," Sam pointed out.

"Bucharest is a great city! Don't talk shit about Romania. You didn't even find me till some guy failed at impersonating me and got my face plastered over every paper in the world." Which had been Zemo's plan, of course, but Bucky seemed singularly insulted by Zemo's impersonation of him. 

"I know. I spent two years chasing down dead end leads in Europe 'cause of you."

"World travel, kid. Broadens the horizons." Even Bucky's grin seemed healthier now. The guy was an asshole, but Sam was still glad to see him recovering.

"Yeah, I got enough of that in Afghanistan, thanks." Not that he needed to talk about the horrors of war to a guy who'd served in World War II. Warfare might have changed in the intervening decades, but the end result was all too similar. He wondered if the Wakandans had ever experienced anything similar here in their peaceful, secluded country - but, well, they must have developed weapons for a reason.

Bucky took them not to the palace, but into a tunnel in the side of a mountain. _"Mena Ngai,"_ T'Challa told Sam, _"The Great Mound. The meteorite that fell from the skies all those years ago, giving us the source of our vibranium - and mutating the people and wildlife of Wakanda, so that my ancestors called on the Panther God to bless them when they took up their spears. Bast gave us the Heart-Shaped Herb, and with Bast's blessing, we will find it again. The line of the Black Panther will not end with me."_ Erik might have destroyed the priests' cultivated supply, but T'Challa believed that more existed - more would be found, given time. The candidates for the Panther Habit had gone out in search of it on their own many years ago; it had not always been kept in a safe place, but grown wild in the jungles of Wakanda, Bast's children keeping it safe.

All of that mattered little right now, but the familiarity of his home soothed T'Challa. He had spent too much time in America; it was good to feel Wakandan soil under his feet again, even if those feet happened to be paws. He needed no urging to jump out of the hovercar and speed along the familiar corridors to Shuri's workshop.

_"Shuri!"_ he mewed, and his sister turned around, her eyes wide as saucers in her face.

"T'Challa?" She scooped him up in her arms, and for once, T'Challa didn't squirm. This was his little sister, who had been toddling around after him since she could walk, his ally in too many small mischiefs to count. He butted his head against her neck affectionately, a purr rumbling in his chest. "Thank Bast you've returned to us safely!" Her fingers traced the jagged white mark on his chest, the reminder of the necklace she'd made for him. "What happened?"

_"Some sort of Western magic,"_ T'Challa explained. Of course she could understand him; he hadn't doubted that for a moment. They were bound by blood - if Sam could understand him with something as simple as exchanging blood, then Shuri was capable of it without the ritual. _"A sorcerer I met in America said that the spell was entangled with the Panther Spirit, though, creating a strange mixture of the two. Has Okoye returned?"_

Shuri frowned and transferred her gaze to Bucky and Sam as they entered the room. "Okoye was arrested at the embassy under suspicion of assassination. The rest of your Dora Milaje had already returned here, and the remainder of the embassy staff were American-born, although some few have Wakandan blood. I know not who accused her, but she awaits trial - and, presumably, execution." T'Challa meowed in protest, but she silenced him with a hand on his head. "I know, brother. But Okoye serves Wakanda - she made that clear when Killmonger took the throne. There are some using that as their argument that she could have been turned against you."

_"Yes, and the entire country could have been turned against me, using that logic."_ T'Challa leapt out of his sister's embrace to pace the floor. _"We need to find some way to reverse this magic."_

"I mean, I was going to suggest that we try to figure out how to get you two to switch shapes again and break her out," Sam offered. "Although I don't know if I want to make out with a cat."

The idea wasn't entirely without merit, T'Challa thought. Proving her innocence was more important; if she escaped, it could be taken as an admission of guilt. _"Do the Dora Milaje hold her?"_ he asked Shuri.

She shook her head. "The War Dogs. They had her before I found any of this out, and I couldn't do anything to get her transferred. Mother's hands are tied; she's too busy trying to keep all of this quiet."

_That_ was worrying. A Dora Milaje accused of a crime - any crime, including regicide - was typically held by her sisters until the trial. To have her in the custody of the Hatut Zeraze meant that there were politics beyond his reckoning at work here.

_"All right,"_ he said slowly. _"Let's consider Sam's idea."_

"Hold on," Bucky interjected. "Making out with a cat?" Sam had been quietly translating T'Challa's comments for him all along. 

"T'Challa was switching back and forth between forms," Sam explained. "We don't know why, but he would turn human for a few hours, while Okoye remained a cat. When, uh, I kissed him, he became a cat again, and Okoye changed back to a human. And I'm pretty sure that if I stick my tongue in his mouth right now, he's just gonna bite it off."

"Then don't use tongues." Shuri rolled her eyes, somewhere between disgusted and exasperated. "This doesn't make any scientific sense. Let me take some readings, T'Challa, and you three can make your ridiculous kissing plans or...whatever." She waved a hand. "_Magic_. Who uses magic?"

_"Westerners, apparently."_ T'Challa wasn't overly fond of the thought of Sam sticking his tongue in his mouth in this shape, either. Now, as a human, _that_ had merit. At some point, they would have to pursue what they had started, but that was best left to be considered later.

Shuri shook her head and bent to pick up something from her sandtable. "You'll be needing this, by the way." She extended the arm to Bucky hand-first. "Shake." An impish smile tugged at her lips. "Just _wait_ till you see everything I've put in."

Bucky didn't look entirely pleased to be confronted with a new arm. He had, T'Challa knew, been enjoying a quiet, peaceful recovery; for the first time in decades, he had his mind back, and he wasn't being hunted by anyone. The mechanical arm meant a return to being a soldier, an acceptance that battle would never truly leave him. He ignored Shuri's ridiculous joke and gripped the arm by the wrist, settling down on the edge of the sandtable. 

Once Bucky started to put the arm in - aided by Sam - Shuri turned back to T'Challa with a syringe. "I'll just need some blood," she apologized, which didn't keep T'Challa from hissing when she plunged the needle in. "Oh, don't be such a baby. Biology isn't my specialty, but I can at least analyze your DNA and take a look at your cellular structure, things like that. Certainly better than any Americans could."

"Is this like a flash drive?" Sam cracked. "You put it in one way and-" He stopped at the blank looks he got from all three of them. "I really gotta make some friends who understand modern cultural references." 

"Maybe if you didn't use such primitive computers," Shuri sniffed. "Give me that." She took the arm from him, and it clicked into place quickly. "There. Try flexing the fingers."

Bucky made each finger move in turn, then clenched his hand into a fist while Shuri watched the readings on her screen. "It's good enough for now," she decided. "Not the final model, but at least I'll be able to get data from this."

"Thanks, princess." He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and Shuri blushed a little. "You know that if there's ever anything I can do for you-"

"Just get Okoye back safe and sound," she insisted. "And keep my big brother safe while you're at it, since he can't do it himself." Shuri paused for a moment, then turned to Sam. "And as for you, I want to take a look at those wings when you get back. I'm sure I could make them better. But make sure you take that shield with you. If you get into a fight, the guards will have vibranium weapons, and that's the only chance you have of keeping yourself safe."

Sam looked a little uncertain about that, and T'Challa couldn't blame him. The shield wasn't exactly subtle.

"Oh, come on." She picked up the shield from where Sam had left it on the floor, then grabbed a brush and vial of liquid from her workbench. A few swipes, and it began to turn matte black - nanites, T'Challa suspected, from a new update to the Panther Habit, given the way the black crawled over the shield by itself. "Captain Rogers can complain about this when he gets it back. I'm not sending you out with a target painted on your back. It's already bad enough that you'll be with Bucky."

Which was a valid point; his skin would be immediately obvious anywhere in Wakanda. While his people came in a variety of shades, nobody was as white as Sergeant Barnes. Bucky just rolled his eyes at the remark and took a pot of facepaint and a mask from a pouch on his belt - a mask not entirely unlike one he'd worn as the Winter Soldier, T'Challa noticed, but he imagined this one was made by Shuri.

"I've linked your comms together," she continued, confirming T'Challa's suspicions. "They all feed back to me, so I'll know if you get in trouble. Try not to get in trouble, though, 'cause it'll be a pain to get two foreigners free of the War Dogs." A definite understatement there. At least T'Challa could run off and seek sanctuary in the nearest temple if it came to it. He wondered for a moment if they ought to call the sorcerer for aid, but he was loath to have still more white men come to his rescue. Besides, their plan was sound, or so he hoped.

Their plan was anything but sound. As it turned out, Okoye was being kept in one of the higher levels of the building, so Sam had to drop onto a ledge with T'Challa. Even for a cat, it looked like a long way down, and they didn't know how long Shuri could keep the perimeter alarms down without anyone noticing. 

"No tongues," Sam breathed, and T'Challa rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure why a kiss on the mouth was even necessary, but something about the magic just made it function that way, apparently. Sam's lips met his, and-

And in an instant, T'Challa was human once more. That part of the plan, at least, had worked. From inside the building, he heard a yowl, one that was mirrored by the extremely annoyed cat in front of him.

The cat had - there was no way of getting around it - _wings_. Actual feathered wings.

Despite the many, many problems with this situation, T'Challa couldn't hold back a laugh. Or several, in fact, although he managed to stifle them enough so that nobody would hear.

_"I hate you,"_ Sam said with all the dignity a small feathered cat could muster, which wasn't much.

Meanwhile, Okoye had made it out of the cell and onto the ledge, and T'Challa found himself confronted with two cats and no obvious way of escape. Bucky was three stories down, waiting outside the perimeter, and couldn't help them. But thankfully, T'Challa still had the Panther Habit, and with a thought, it activated; the vibranium could absorb the force of the fall without a problem. He picked up Okoye and the shield, then gave Sam a look. "You're going to have to get down by yourself." He had certainly had feline instincts come with the form - but did that mean Sam would be able to use his wings? 

He shrugged and jumped off the ledge. He held Okoye close to his chest, sheltering her between his body and the shield - much as Sam had done with him earlier. He knew it was uncomfortable, but he also knew that the vibranium would keep her safe.

A shout arose from the compound as T'Challa hit the ground, and two of the War Dogs came around the side of the building, spears at the ready. Without thinking, T'Challa threw the shield at them. He could certainly understand the pleasure Captain Rogers derived from the maneuver; it ricocheted off one man to hit his companion, and both of them went down. Okoye scrambled free, running away from the fight and squirming through the gate they had used to get in - where she would hopefully find Bucky on the other side, if all went well. T'Challa picked the shield up and followed her.

When they found Bucky, he was nearly doubled over with laughter at Sam, whose fur was puffed up as far as it would go. 

"Sam," T'Challa said gently, crouching down next to him. The man had shown him every kindness during his time as a cat, after all, and returning the favor was the least he could do. "You can be angry later. We need to move now." He wondered why the magic had rebounded and turned Sam into a cat when it hadn't before - but then, T'Challa had managed to bring him into the spell when he had exchanged blood with him, hadn't he? It was his fault, something he prudently decided to refrain from mentioning to Sam. "You can ride on my shoulder if you like," he added.

Sam looked like he was trying to figure out how to scratch T'Challa through a vibranium-weave suit, but after a long, sulky moment, he hopped onto the king's shoulder.

_"Tell Bucky I'm pissing on all his stuff later,"_ he grumbled.

"I am not passing that sentiment on." _Honestly_. T'Challa understood the frustration he was going through - he'd taken it out on the scratching post Sam had bought him, in fact - but he refused to be a channel for such vulgarity.

Okoye studied the two of them for a long moment, then took up a position on Bucky's shoulder. Since they were all on foot now, it was for the best if the cats were carried by the enhanced humans, who could move quickly and had more endurance. It also meant that T'Challa had to listen to Sam swear under his breath for at least five minutes - though the stream thankfully petered out long before they reached Shuri's workshop.

"Brother!" Shuri embraced him warmly. "I see we have a new problem to work out." Her gaze flicked to Sam - who, given the opportunity, was flying around the workshop until he found a properly high place to perch. "I'd like to know how that's even _possible_."

"Magic," T'Challa said with a shrug. "We might want to call the sorcerer before everyone becomes a cat."

"Hey," Bucky protested, "I'm not making out with anyone, okay? I'm staying human."

"Same," Shuri seconded. "This sounds like a logic puzzle - you have to figure out the right combination of kisses to make everyone human again. Maybe you need to kiss Okoye next." She grinned at him.

"I think W'Kabi might have my head," T'Challa scoffed. "King or no, there are some things that are simply unacceptable."

"Well, my tests aren't showing anything out of the ordinary about your cat DNA, your cellular structure, or anything else." Shuri shrugged. "Maybe if I had some way of detecting magic, it would be able to pick that up - I assume it's a form of energy like any other. Actually, I wouldn't mind talking to the sorcerer about that. Or doing a DNA test on Sam."

"Good luck getting a sample." Bucky glanced up at Sam, who had curled up in a bundle of wings and fur on top of a shelf, and didn't seem inclined to come down.

T'Challa shrugged and picked some hairs off the weave of his suit. "These ought to suffice." They were from the neck of the suit, where Sam had pressed close to him - not where he'd held Okoye against his chest. 

"On the bright side, now we can prove Okoye's innocence, since you're clearly alive." Shuri took the fur from him and delicately dropped a few hairs into a test tube. "Which may be the only thing we have going for us at the moment, considering that there's obviously some sort of conspiracy."

"One that involves Westerners as well as Wakandans," T'Challa agreed, "and I find that troublesome. Although not entirely unexpected." He had known the western world would want to find a way to acquire Wakanda's resources - he had offered their knowledge without price, but there were some who would want to be the first to get it and turn a profit, inevitably. "I should be safe once I return to the palace; I doubt the corruption has reached the Dora Milaje. Even without Okoye to lead them, they will keep me safe."

Okoye meowed her assent. _"The remainder of your guard left America shortly after the incident, to maintain the illusion that they were escorting you back home. Since then, I believe they have been at the Queen Mother's side - and Shuri's, when she is in residence at the palace."_

"They ought to be here in a crisis such as this." T'Challa frowned at his sister, who contrived to look as innocent as possible. She was infamous for refusing bodyguards in situations where it might be necessary.

"I can protect myself, brother," she protested. "Here, better than anywhere else." Though other Wakandan scientists conducted research in the Great Mound, Shuri's workshop, by necessity, had its own methods of defense, and could be shut off from the others - and had its own secret exit, as well. That didn't mean he felt comfortable with his little sister unguarded. Of course, he had had a bodyguard, too, and look what had happened to both of them.

"We all need to return to the palace to plan our next move." All of them, including Bucky and Sam. The two outsiders had been drawn into this, and it fell to T'Challa to keep them safe. "I think contacting the sorcerer is necessary, and I would rather have him in the palace than with our technology. Who knows what experiments his magic might disrupt."

And while Sam had been the one with the sorcerer's phone number, T'Challa _thought_ it would be trivially easy to acquire it. Any sort of information was available to him; databases Americans thought were secure were rather less so when accessed by Wakandan technology. The problem was that one Stephen Strange had simply disappeared from records. There were any number of journal articles and awards, all of which dated back several years. He found records of a car crash, files of his treatment, and then-

And then nothing after a flight to Kathmandu. It made no sense. If he had been Wakandan, then his kimoyo beads would have served as a record of his life, but the Westerners had nothing similar - didn't even have centrally located files in their government. True, there were far more people living in America, but there was no excuse for the sloppiness of their records, he thought.

"Next time," he told Sam, "we're making more than one copy of the phone number." Maybe it had been a burner phone - certainly there were no records of a phone number belonging to Strange, apart from the one that had been disconnected years ago.

_"Ask Stark,"_ Sam suggested from where he was curled up on the desk. The polished wood had acquired a number of clawmarks that he was sure would be the despair of his housekeeping staff.

T'Challa made a face at the suggestion, but he knew Sam was right. At least Stark was on the same continent as the sorcerer. The man was famous for being difficult to work with, but he had been willing enough to ally himself with T'Challa in Germany. "Should I tell him what happened to the jet?" he asked wryly.

_"Oh, trust me, he knows. I'm sure I'll hear all about it when I get back."_

"Hold on, I'll send him a picture, maybe he'll feel sorry for you." One side of T'Challa's lips curved up into a smile. "At least he won't know whether to make cat jokes or bird jokes."

_"Very funny."_ Sam did not look especially amused when T'Challa snapped a picture with his kimoyo beads and included it as an attachment in his email to Tony Stark.

"I can't find the guy, either," Tony admitted on a telephone call. "Have you tried saying his name three times? Maybe he's like Beetlejuice or something."

That was a movie T'Challa actually _had_ seen; his father had imported American movies to watch when he was a child, and he had learned a great deal of his English from them early on. He still rolled his eyes, though. "That sounds singularly ineffective."

"So does making out with a cat to turn them into a human, but everyone seems to think that's a great idea, from what you've told me." 

_"There weren't any tongues,"_ Sam interjected. _"It was hardly making out."_

T'Challa chose not to translate that for the American, continuing with their conversation. "He was mentioned in SHIELD's information dump, but that seems to have been before his car accident. Certainly there's nothing to tie him to the occult."

"Seems weird that he would've been a person of interest to them before that, but- hell, who knows. The algorithm Project Insight used to choose its targets was lost with the helicarriers; all we have is a fraction of the list." Tony shrugged.

And according to that list, T'Challa had been one of the potential targets, a thought which troubled him deeply. How _had_ it known?

"Perhaps you should post an ad on the internet," he suggested dryly. "Or rent a billboard."

"Yeah, or maybe I'll get a copy of the Necronomicon and try to summon Cthulhu." Tony paused for a moment. "Actually, hold that thought. I'll drop you a line later."

True to his word, a half-hour later, Stark emailed him a phone number. Reverse searching the number gave him no information on its owner, so at least he hadn't missed something in his own hunt. He wondered idly what Stark had done to find the wizard, then decided it was, perhaps, better left unknown.

"I am _really_ sick of you amateurs messing around with magic," the person who answered the number said in lieu of a greeting. But it certainly sounded like the irritable sorcerer who had appeared in Tony Stark's apartment. "Do you know how much work Tony Stark just made for me? And now you want me to turn up in Wakanda and solve all your magical problems for you. Only goddamn _idiots_ believe in manipulating ley line energy."

"I assume that it worked, though." Judging by the sorcerer's level of annoyance.

"If by worked, you mean it flooded the ley lines with some sort of weird technological energy and fucked who knows how many things up, then yes, it worked. I doubt even Stark knows _how_. It's enough to make me seriously consider becoming a hermit in Tibet."

("I used a Norse artifact as a conduit," Tony explained to him later. "Fuck if I knew what I was doing, I just dug up some old papers and maps and jury-rigged some crystals and shit.")

"Do people even do that?" T'Challa was curious in spite of himself.

"If magical solutions were easy to find, then everybody would be knocking at my door, and I'd never get a moment of peace. My teacher was a hermit, and she only took me in when I proved that I wasn't going away anytime soon. Keep talking, I need to triangulate your location. How'd you turn back into a human?"

"Ah." Even though there was nobody there to see him but Sam, T'Challa blushed. "Sam kissed me. It was part of a plan to free Okoye," he felt obligated to explain. "And I wouldn't be calling you, but it turned Sam into a cat."

"Well, that shouldn't have happened."

"A cat with wings," he elaborated.

"That _really_ shouldn't have happened."

"When we landed in Wakanda, I thought about what you said about my link to the Panther Spirit being tied in with the spell," T'Challa explained. "It seemed to me that if I shared blood with Sam, he would be able to understand me in the same way that Okoye and I were able to understand each other."

A great deal of swearing in a language T'Challa didn't know followed. "May the Vishanti protect me from goddamned _amateurs_. Why did you think it was a good idea to involve another person in a spell that was already too complicated for me to figure out?"

"I had to have someone able to understand me. The curse prevents me from communicating its nature otherwise - kept me from talking about it at all until the first time Sam kissed me. So perhaps he was already intrinsically part of the spell from that moment."

"I didn't see anything of that nature when I examined you initially, but I could have missed it," Strange admitted begrudgingly. "I wasn't looking at him, just at the spellwork on you. So you practiced some kind of blood magic ritual in Wakanda, where the balance of the magic is in your favor, and this is what happened." He sighed. "I'll search the archives to see if I can find anything relevant to your situation and drop by later. You're lucky; I don't usually make house calls.

"Also," he added as an afterthought, "all of you stop kissing people. Or cats. And nothing with blood. _God_, that's unsanitary. I bet you didn't bother to sterilize anything, did you?"

T'Challa opened his mouth to respond, but the sorcerer had already hung up on him.

_"Nice guy,"_ Sam remarked. _"Definitely a people person."_

"He's no Dumbledore, that much is certain." What? Princes were allowed to read frivolous literature sometimes, and T'Challa read voraciously. 

Sam scoffed. _"Why are all the famous wizards old white guys, anyway? Dumbledore, Gandalf, Merlin..."_

"Because that sort of magic is a Western tradition," T'Challa pointed out mildly, "and our people are not ridiculous enough to create doddering wizards who imbibe questionable substances. Because in their tradition, men are allowed to become old sages of wisdom, and in your country, at least, old black men were useless once they could no longer work. And because all the literature is _written_ by white men. We have our own tales, here in Wakanda, but our magic is closer to nature and the gods, and our magic-users are shamans." He paused for a moment and thought of the handful of shamans he'd met. "Although many of them _do_ imbibe questionable substances far more dangerous than pipeweed."

_"Yeah, well, where I'm from, if you use drugs, you don't live long enough to become an old man."_

T'Challa knew this was typical of many poorer communities in America - that the spread of cheap drugs was considered a plague propagated by minorities in the area, and led to both violence and widespread incarceration. It was one of the reasons why he'd created his outreach center in Oakland, to show the people that there were ways out, that nobody would have to live the life Erik did. It wasn't a perfect solution, but T'Challa let himself hope that they could make a difference there. Perhaps, if they did, he would open another outreach center in Harlem. 

"Do you think this sorcerer uses drugs?"

Sam was saved from having to answer by the arrival of Stephen Strange himself, who stepped out of another one of those portals and gave them both a disdainful look. "Why would I do that, when reality is so much weirder than anything any chemical substances can cook up?" He shook his head. "I have some teas that can induce a mild hallucinogenic state; it's supposedly useful as a teaching aid for out of body experiences. My own teacher preferred the more direct approach, and I'm afraid I don't have the patience for pupils. Our order was...recently decimated in a battle against some of our own, and at the moment, only our archivist and I remain."

It was the longest speech either of them had heard from the wizard so far, and they both stared at him for a moment.

"What? Am I supposed to be bowing? You are King T'Challa, right? I know we met earlier, but- well."

"No, no, we don't do that sort of thing here." T'Challa made a gesture, although he did notice that his cape rippled in a strange sort of bowing motion. "Does your cape-"

"It has a strange sense of humor." Stephen smoothed a hand over one velvet-covered shoulder, then looked at Sam. "You know, that really shouldn't be possible, even with magic. Especially if you're capable of flight in that form. Can I-"

Sam rose to a sitting position and spread a wing, although he batted one of Strange's hands away when he reached out to touch. T'Challa noticed that the sorcerer's hands were lined with scars - presumably from the accident he'd been in. Maybe that was why he'd been wearing gloves before, out of vanity. If so, T'Challa didn't blame him.

"He's been flying," T'Challa offered. "Both inside and outside. While he prefers short flights, I haven't seen anything that would indicate he's incapable of longer ones. He was wearing his jetpack when he was transformed, and I think-"

"It translated physically." Strange hummed thoughtfully. "Still doesn't make sense, inorganic material becoming organic, but this spell has a mind of its own."

"Like your cloak?"

"Something like that - okay, totally different as far as technical terms go, but, sure, we'll leave it at that. But _wings_, and wings as a third set of limbs - from a biological point of view, that's not something we see. Especially the mixture of fur and feathers. I think it would only be possible in a wholly magical construct, rather than a transformation, where most things have a direct analogue to the normal form." Strange paused. "Can I at least have a feather?"

"Your mythology has a tradition of gryphons," T'Challa offered as Sam delicately pulled out a small feather with his teeth. "Those are similar."

"And completely fictional. I've never seen a gryphon, dragon, basilisk, cockatrice, unicorn, or anything of that nature." Strange tucked the feather away somewhere inside his cloak. "Which isn't to say that they aren't out there _somewhere_, but if they are, I suspect they're on another planet - or even another universe - where evolution took a different path than it did on Earth. But I'm not an evolutionary biologist, so I couldn't speak as to the significance of the form and its potential origins, just that there is no potential ancestor for such things."

"No, but you were apparently a very skilled neurologist." He watched Strange for a reaction, but the man remained neutral.

"In another life. Now I protect the Earth from threats it doesn't even understand. And, apparently, spend too much time examining cats who used to be people." 

_"I'm still people,"_ Sam protested indignantly. _"I just happen to have fur and feathers right now - which, by the way, he really needs to get on fixing. You were right, the litterbox thing gets old real fast."_

T'Challa couldn't help but feel a small measure of vindictive pleasure at this. Oh, he knew it wasn't Sam's fault he'd had to suffer the indignity of litter, but the association was plain in his mind nonetheless. He ascribed it to irrational feline emotions and a more primitive thought pattern than his own. They all seemed to have acquired a touch of feline instincts - in Sam's case, it entailed leaving mice and small lizards on the pillow next to him, and T'Challa was very certain the servants were tired of laundering pillowcases on a daily basis.

"I need more time to work." Strange folded his arms over his chest. "Like I said before, this is linked with the Panther Spirit somehow, and even in Wakanda, I'm afraid that if I do something wrong, it'll sever your connection - possibly irrevocably. And I'm pretty sure that's something you don't want."

Objectively, T'Challa knew that one day Bast's gifts would pass to another - that, like his father before him, he would grow too old to continue in the role of the Black Panther, and the mantle would go to a younger person. But he was still young and healthy - in his prime, in fact - and he had no desire to relinquish his title just yet. Particularly because, as it stood, the most suitable candidate in line for the habit was Shuri, and...well, he loved his little sister dearly, but he doubted her suitability for the role. Maybe when she was older and steadier, but she still had some growing up to do, much as he had at her age. 

"No, you're right," he agreed. "Take your time, please. If I can find a shaman for you-"

"It would be appreciated. Or any records of Wakandan magic, especially pertaining to the bond between the Panther Spirit and its host." He paused. "Have you ever considered that it's some sort of symbiote?"

T'Challa gave him a patient look that hinted that his line of questioning was close to what a Wakandan might consider blasphemy. "It is the Panther Spirit, a gift from Bast. Nothing more, nothing less." He didn't need anyone - like Tony Stark - to demystify his religion for him. Wakandans were scientific enough that if there had been anything to figure out, they surely would have done so already. He picked up a pen and scribbled a note. "Here. You have access to the royal archives. If you need a translator - and I'm certain you will - one will be arranged for."

Even a sorcerer knew when he was being dismissed, and Strange waved a hand and disappeared into another one of his portals.

"Congratulations, Sam." T'Challa sank down into his chair, reaching out to pet his friend. "You've been eclipsed in the rudest things Westerners have ever said to me."

_"Finally."_ T'Challa wasn't sure if he was referring to the rude comments or the petting, and he decided not to ask, instead scooping him into his lap. Sam seemed pleased enough with the outcome, kneading and purring noisily. _"I was just trying to make conversation."_

"I suppose I shouldn't hold a man's ignorance against him, but it is tempting sometimes." A _symbiote_. The Panther Spirit wasn't a living organism - not as science would term such, anyway. It was very much alive, but it also linked him to his ancestors in the Djalia, the Wakandan spirit plane. Science would have denied the existence of that, too, but T'Challa had been there, had spoken with his ancestors - with the spirit of his father. He _was_ a man of science, but he was also a man of faith. How could he be otherwise, with the power of his own god flowing through him?

_"He could give Tony Stark a run for his money in the pain in the ass department,"_ Sam agreed. _"And probably the ego department, too."_

"If he were still a neurologist, I would arrange for him to see some of Wakanda's medicine," T'Challa remarked wryly. "What my little sister did with Bucky would blow his mind, to use one of your idioms."

_"Yeah, well, we still need him to help, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't piss him off, T'Challa. Not that I don't like flying with real wings and all, but I'm starting to miss having thumbs."_

"I do enjoy watching you terrorize the birds in the palace gardens, though," T'Challa teased him, fingers teasing the fur behind his ears. "It's always amusing when they realize that you can fly just as well as they can." Sam hadn't killed any, but he delighted in chasing them, especially when that chase took to the air. T'Challa was impressed by the skill with which he flew - but something in his body must have already been accustomed to the practice. After all, he was just as graceful with a pair of mechanical wings. And, although T'Challa hated to admit it, he was graceful on the ground, too. Simply put, Sam Wilson was an attractive man, and _he_ wanted him to become human again for his own less than chaste reasons.

"The spell stretches more every time you bring another person into it," Strange told him. They were all gathered in Shuri's workshop. "In fact, via contamination, it's started to spread to the princess. What I'm going to have to do is figure out a way to limit the contagion without removing it entirely, and then, possibly, reshape it. Shuri will be the easiest to remove, then Okoye. But if I leave just you in it, then you'll be a cat, perhaps permanently. Ideally, we want to find a balance."

"Ideally," T'Challa remarked, "we want to remove it entirely." _Obviously_. 

"What about the drink from the challenge?" Shuri said suddenly. "It temporarily nullifies your bond with the Panther Spirit." 

Strange looked interested for a moment, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "That depends on its magical properties. If it acts as a dampener, then it could negate the spell temporarily - it might wipe out all magic, or it might just affect the psychic bond...well, I say psychic, but it's more complicated than that."

_"Is it just me, or is everything in magic more complicated than it seems?"_ Sam asked. 

"There are too many variables to account for here." Strange started making gestures in the air, and purple sigils formed around his fingers. "Let's fix Shuri first-" Some of the sigils sank into her skin, and she shuddered. "And Okoye." T'Challa felt the spell tightening around him again as the magic swirled around Okoye, restoring her to her former shape.

"Here." Shuri brought out a gourd dipper with a bitter scent that T'Challa recognized, offering it to Sam. "Drink some of this."

Sam put his whiskers back at the scent, but lapped at the liquid anyway. He shuddered as the drink coursed through him, and then-

And then he was human again, and his wings were back to their normal mechanical state.

"Interesting." The magic around the sorcerer's hands faded. "The two of you are still bound together, but the spell has faded from Sam, and T'Challa's still human."

"As human as he was to begin with, anyway," Shuri joked. "So if we concentrate it and deliver a higher dose, it should last longer, right?"

"For Sam, anyway. Obviously we can't use it on the king. But it does seem to have stabilized the changes, at least for the moment." 

"Hold on," Sam said, and he clasped T'Challa's face in between his hands, drawing his head down to kiss him soundly. T'Challa was dimly aware of Shuri and Bucky whooping in the background, but mostly - 

Mostly, he was aware of Sam.

"Okay, I think it works," Sam murmured against his lips. "But we might have to test it some more, just to check."

T'Challa blinked dazedly at him. Close up, he looked the same, except his irises had turned a burnished gold color. He lifted a hand to the other man's face, trailing fingers over his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the soft skin of his lips.

"Get a room, you two," Bucky called out.

"Perhaps we should." T'Challa smiled at Sam and tangled the fingers of his free hand with him.

"I wasn't _done_ yet," Strange protested, and T'Challa felt the magic within him shift again. He didn't know what the sorcerer was doing, and frankly, he didn't care.

"There are private medical rooms nearby," he offered to Sam as he dragged him out of Shuri's workroom. Or he tried to make the suggestion, only to find himself being pressed against the wall and kissed thoroughly. Sam's hands snuck beneath the edge of his tunic to find bare flesh, and T'Challa made an undignified noise. "_Really_, Sam."

"Yeah, fine." He grinned. "I need to get everything off anyway." And although he obviously meant the wings and the rest of his tactical gear, T'Challa hoped that it included the rest of his clothes as well.

It only took them a couple of minutes to find the promised room - stark white and impersonal, but it had a door that locked and a bed, and frankly, that was what T'Challa cared about the most right now. Sam clearly was of the same mind, since he went back to kissing him once the door clicked shut behind him - pushed him up against the door, even, and T'Challa set about finding all the buckles and fasteners on his gear by touch only.

"This," T'Challa muttered, "is incredibly inconvenient." It seemed like he would never get Sam out of his clothes at this rate.

"Mm." Sam stepped back, took a seat on the edge of the bed, and shed his gear in less time than T'Challa would have thought possible, his fingers made deft through many years of practice. "That better?"

"Certainly." The king straddled Sam's hips, pushing the other man back down onto the bed with his kisses. There was something strange in the back of his mind - something that didn't seem to be his own arousal, but certainly fed into it - but he paid it no attention, concentrating solely on the physical. And there was more than enough of that to focus on as he revealed Sam's skin inch by inch, and all Sam could do was writhe beneath him. 

He worked his way down, and soon enough, he was kneeling before Sam, his head bowed in a most unkinglike position. Sam's fingers ran through his hair, encouraging him. "T'Challa." He slid fingers under his chin, making him look up and meet his gaze, and T'Challa felt a strange surge of affection. "You sure you wanna do this?"

"Definitely." It wasn't as if he was a stranger to this, although his own pursuits in the area had, by necessity, been discreet and rather limited. He had experience, and he _wanted_ to please Sam. He could smell the combination of musk and sweat, and it made his mouth water. Delicately, he licked the tip of his erection, feeling Sam shudder, tasting the bitter precome on his tongue. He lapped at the slit for a moment, running his hands over the inside of Sam's thighs, parting them more until he could press his fingers at the smooth skin behind his balls.

"Just- just checking," Sam gasped, and his fingers tightened in the king's hair. T'Challa grinned impishly up at him before he sucked the entire head of his cock into his mouth and ran his tongue along the ridge of the head. His own erection twitched in his pants, straining at the cloth that confined it, and he let one hand fall to knead at the bulge. Continuing to suck, he undid the fastenings of his trousers and pulled his cock out - surely, he thought, Sam wouldn't mind. In fact, he heard a gasp of pleasure from above.

"Keep going." Sam's hand guided him a little to the left, and T'Challa obeyed. While one hand pressed against his perineum, T'Challa pleased himself with the other, at least up until the point where it became too distracting. Then he focused all of his attention on Sam, redoubling his efforts. He flicked his gaze upward, watching Sam arch his back, his muscles standing out as they tensed. Sam's balls tightened under his hand, and T'Challa knew he was close. He sucked harder, bobbed his head faster, until the skin he worked with his tongue hardened quickly, then pulsed rhythmically with Sam's release. Sam's fingers flexed in his hair - not unlike a cat kneading with its paws - and he shuddered at T'Challa's ministrations.

"I think," T'Challa gasped, resting his head against Sam's thigh, "I felt that."

"Mmph," Sam replied. He let his hand fall to T'Challa's cheek, and the other man nuzzled it. He knew what he had felt - something that wasn't his climax, because he was still hard, but had been unmistakeable nonetheless. "Come up here." His words were slurred, and his gaze was unfocused.

T'Challa climbed up onto the bed next to him, and Sam let his head fall against his shoulder. "I'll repay the favor later," he promised, "and more." His wandering hand found T'Challa's erection, fingers curling around it, and T'Challa swore under his breath. It had been too long since another had touched him.

"Sam," he whispered. "Sam, I want you." Of course he did, his rational mind pointed out, or else he wouldn't be here. He looped an arm around Sam's lower back, enjoying the warmth, the muscle under his skin.

"I want to see you naked," Sam mumbled, his voice still a little breathless. "Naked and spread out on the bed - god, you're pretty, has anyone ever told you that?" His fingers squeezed, and T'Challa gasped.

"Not quite in those words, no."

"You are. You're just-" He kissed T'Challa's neck. "Unfair. I wanna spread you open and fuck you with my fingers, watch you beg for more."

"Kings do not beg," T'Challa interjected, though his voice was shaky. His entire body trembled as Sam stroked him slowly - too slowly for his liking.

"You will." Sam nibbled his earlobe. "Because I'll stop before you come." His voice was still pitched low from his own arousal, and every word sent a shiver through T'Challa's body. "And then I'll fuck you from behind, on your hands and knees. I'm gonna jerk you off just like this, and when you come, you'll have my name on your lips."

Which proved to be prophetic, because a moment later, T'Challa did indeed come, gasping out Sam's name. Sam kissed him, swallowing the noises he made, milking every last bit of arousal from him until his cock went soft. They curled up on the bed together, T'Challa still mostly clothed, and, like the cats they had been, fell asleep.

When Sam woke up again, he was a black panther, and one forepaw was splayed over T'Challa's still-human shoulder. _"Goddamnit,"_ he grumbled. _"Where the hell is that wizard?"_ Being a bigger cat was nice, he had to admit, but it still didn't compare to being human. And had he changed because Shuri's concoction had worn off, or because of the sex? He waited for T'Challa to make himself presentable - as presentable as he could under the circumstances - and then they made their way back to Shuri's workshop.

"I don't know where Strange went." Shuri shrugged. "He didn't want to stick around - said he had more important things to do. Although he did take a sample of the potion with him. Speaking of which, I have a more concentrated version now, if you'd like to try it." She eyed T'Challa, who was carrying Sam's clothes with him. "You know, brother-"

"Don't say anything." Sam's swishing tail made it evident he agreed with the king. He didn't need a teenage girl lecturing him about sex.

"All right, all right." She held up her hands in defeat. "But I'd better get to examine those wings now that they're metal again, and not flesh and blood."

T'Challa set his burden down on the sandtable, and Sam hopped onto the surface next to him. Shuri took the wings with a crow of glee that most teenagers would have reserved for movie heartthrobs and gave her brother a syringe with a purple liquid.

Once Shuri had exited the room, T'Challa injected Sam, and with a shudder, he changed back into a human. "At least we know it still works." He began pulling his clothes back on. "Though I was kinda hoping the last time would be it."

"I feel as though I'm simply waiting for the inevitable," T'Challa admitted grimly. "I'm sure it will happen to me again, but there's no way of knowing when or how. I'm glad my sister and Okoye are free of the spell, though."

"We should've made Bucky change," Sam grumbled. "Can't believe he escaped all of this and just gets to laugh at the rest of us. And before you say anything, yes, I know magic's not a petty form of revenge. But that doesn't mean I can't _hope_ for it." He really did appreciate all that Bucky had done for them, but he couldn't escape the fact that their relationship largely consisted of petty bickering. It was a lot like having an annoying sibling, which probably explained why T'Challa and Shuri were so amused by the whole thing.

"It would have been interesting to see if he'd had a metal leg," T'Challa mused. "Although if the spell translated your wings to flesh and blood, I think it's safe to assume that it would have done the same for his prosthetic arm."

"I am gonna miss having wings." Sam rolled his shoulders. It had been strange having an extra pair of limbs, but now he felt their absence - not quite the phantom limbs amputees claimed they could feel, but _something_ that wasn't normal.

"The birds won't." T'Challa smiled at him and quickly leaned in to claim a kiss, one that was cut short by Shuri's return.

"Stark's neuro interface is awful, can I tell him that?" She made a face. "He tried, at least, but I'm making it better."

Sam eyed T'Challa dubiously, and the other man just shrugged. There was nothing he could do about Shuri, evidently. 

"Also," she added, "Mother wants you to bring Sam for dinner now that he's normal again." She smirked at the pair of them.

T'Challa groaned. "What did you tell her, Shuri?"

Sam suddenly felt a surge of panic, and not just his own; somehow, he thought, he could sense T'Challa's feelings as well. What _were_ they? Sam had no problem with casual sex, but he was pretty sure this was beyond that, if his own emotions were anything to go by. Did T'Challa feel the same way, or was he just an amusement to the king of Wakanda?

"Nothing!" she protested. "Maybe a little bit more than nothing, but you missed a council meeting, and I had to tell her something, and you know how she is!"

_And_ he was going to eat dinner with the Queen Mother of Wakanda, and for a man who had grown up in Harlem, the prospect of dining with royalty was terrifying - and never mind that he'd had casual meals with both T'Challa and Shuri. They weren't their mother, and this sounded a lot like bringing a significant other home for a parent's evaluation. With a normal person, he wouldn't have been afraid of gaining their approval, but a queen? Yeah, that wasn't likely.

"Don't worry, Sam." She patted his shoulder reassuringly, then grinned. "Just try not to turn into a cat in the middle of dinner."

He hadn't actually been worried about that before now, but he definitely was. "You better have some more of that stuff with you, Shuri," he warned her. "Just in case." Making a good impression was hard enough without the possibility of becoming a black panther.

"On the bright side, a panther might be a good sign," Shuri mused. "I mean, if you think about it-"

T'Challa cut her off with a warning look. Apparently they were all tiptoeing around the issue of their relationship, or their non-relationship, whichever it was. Sam was almost glad to see the sparks that heralded Strange's return.

"I turned into a _panther_ this time," he accused him.

"Good, that means it's working," was the sorcerer's blase response. "I don't think I can remove the spell, so I'm reworking the parameters and adding to the bond between the pair of you. I was able to convince it to take a different shape. If you'll give me a moment-" he started making motions in the air again.

"What do you mean, the bond between us?" T'Challa looked unimpressed.

"Well, you're the one who started it. It seems both the spell and the Panther Spirit took it as a suggestion - do Wakandan marriages involve any sort of blood rituals? Anyway, the two of you are now irrevocably tied together, so, uh, good job there."

Sam and T'Challa just stared at each other for a few moments. When Sam had picked up a stray cat, he had never imagined that it might lead to some sort of magical bond with the king of Wakanda. But he couldn't bring himself to regret it, either.

"So what I'm doing here is reworking the bond to give it more equilibrium - right now, it thinks one of you should be a cat and one should be human. Changing the cat for a panther should allow it to think that being the Black Panther qualifies under that definition, because spells aren't very bright. Unfortunately, I can't keep it at bay forever, so I'm giving it a period of forced transformation once a month, and I _think_ that should work. I don't usually change other people's spells."

"Like werewolves," Sam offered. It was dumb, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

Strange blinked and glanced up from the glowing runes for a moment, purple light reflected in his eyes. "Exactly like that, yes. So we'll go with the full moon - although if you want to get technical, that makes it twice a month sometimes, but it's easy to remember. I analyzed the potion, but I came to the conclusion that you would have to use larger doses over time, and it would eventually lose its efficacy entirely. This is a better tradeoff."

"Better?" T'Challa ran a hand through his hair. "By whose definition?"

"Well, you know when you're going to be a cat, and it'll be for about eight hours a month. That's as good as I can get with this spell." Strange grimaced. "If I ever meet the person who cast it, we're going to have some words."

It was, Sam had to admit, better. Not perfect, and maybe not what he would have planned with his life, but - well, he'd never planned to become a superhero, either. Fate, it seemed, had a way of finding the strangest paths possible for him to take.

T'Challa sighed. "Thank you for your work, Doctor." He turned to Sam, taking his hands. "I should ask, is this acceptable to you? I am afraid I've dragged you into all of this without much of a choice, and it seems that you stand to lose the most."

"I think I've gained more than enough to make up for it." Sam smiled wryly at T'Challa, squeezing his hands to reassure him. The purple glow surrounded them again, and then sank under their skin, where it shimmered for a moment before disappearing from sight. "You're just lucky I like cats."


End file.
